


An Unlikely Romance - The Avengers (Part 1)

by TheWolfSage



Series: An Unlikely Romance - The Avengers [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2020-10-13 06:06:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 29,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20577704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWolfSage/pseuds/TheWolfSage
Summary: There are many stories of love and romance across the multiverse, but not all are so common. Some require the perfect setting, an exact set of circumstances, or a perfect alignment of choices and luck to occur. These romances are rare, unique, and downright... unlikely. But when the stars align, they can happen, and blossom with a life and vigor stronger than any other. This is just one of those romances.Two strangers meet under harsh circumstances. When a woman seeking to forget her past finds someone who has already left theirs behind, who truly comes out ahead? Is it better to remember your past and learn from it, or forget unforgivable mistakes?





	1. Колыбельная

You had no sense of time as you awoke. You couldn’t even tell how long you had been awake, or how long it had taken you to figure out exactly what time was. You might have preferred unconsciousness. That would’ve come with darkness, with numbness, and with relief. Instead you were left feeling like you had been hung out to dry, your limbs and torso aching and feeling like every time you twitched, your skin was pulled too tightly and pinched in the most uncomfortable of ways. You had your eyes closed, but opening them did nothing anyway when you eventually tried. The room was pitch black and your head was secured to the wall, leaving you not only unable to see, but almost entirely unable to move.

You couldn’t tell if the room was silent, or incredibly, obnoxiously loud. The room seemed completely silent except for a slight ringing noise, persistent and annoying. Yet every time you so much as twitched your arms or legs, it felt like the world itself exploded with the strange sounds of metal jangling against metal, echoing for seconds at a time before it finally died down long after you’d stopped moving. It was all that stopped you from trying to move or escape; when you first awoke you had thrashed violently, but you had succeeded only in giving yourself a migraine that had lasted for… well, you _still_ had no sense of time, but a very long while. Likely exacerbated by that ever-present whining.

What concerned you most was not your lack of sight, or your overly sensitive hearing, but your lack of memory. You had a vague recollection of your own appearance – when you thought hard, you could remember your face, your body shape, and a scattering of other details. Beyond that though, there was only an inky haze. You were distinctly aware of the missing pieces, and how unbelievably vast the gaps in your mind were, but you had no idea how to begin to fill those gaps. You couldn’t even come up with a name for yourself. But you’d been hanging there for so long you had moved past panic, past frantic recollections. Instead you were simply waiting. Waiting for something, anything, to change.

That change was subtle, and you wondered if you would have even noticed it if you were not so utterly bored. It was a break in the high-pitched tone plaguing you, a tiny noise that disrupted it and finally allowed your mind a reprieve aside from jangling your bindings until they drove you insane. The noise sounded like bubble wrap, tiny and distant pops that echoed and reverberated around you. You started to count the moments between the pops, and noticed them growing more and more infrequent. Eventually they faded away, and for a time you wondered if that was the end of it.

But at the count of a hundred and ninety-seven after the last noise, you finally got something new. It wasn’t a sound, more like a wave of pure force – you felt it with your entire body, and it hurt like _fuck-shit-fuck-there-it-went-again_.

This time it wasn’t just the wave, though. It was followed by what sounded like explosions, and then across your closed eyes the first flashes of light you could remember abruptly coated your eyelids. Even with your eyes firmly shut the light seemed blinding, as if a thousand suns had suddenly invaded your confinement and were dancing around you. Your ears were ringing, but even as they started to clear there was too much noise to understand anything. It sounded like you were in the middle of a rally, words you couldn’t make out shouted so loudly it was as if ten thousand people chanted them in unison.

With all the noise all you could do was struggle, adrenaline flowing through your veins and fueling you beyond normal efforts. Whatever you were doing must have worked, although your eyes still hadn’t adjusted enough to see it for yourself. Something snapped around your hands and they pried free of the wall. That freed you up to use all your energy on your legs, prying at your restraints until they faded away.

The moment you freed yourself, something black blurred your vision. You didn’t recognize it as an assailant until something struck you in the stomach so hard that you nearly doubled over. With no idea who or what was attacking you or how to strike them, you lashed out furiously. Amidst the commotion around you, for the first time you were able to pick out a sound – the “whoosh” of air leaving someone’s lungs, followed by a long groan of pain as the dark shadow left your vision. The noises still seemed far too loud, but they were overwhelmed by the pounding and thrumming in your ears, the sound of your own heartbeat echoing furiously. 

Your eyes were adjusting, but only quickly enough to tell that now three figures approached instead of one. You could hear them shouting, but the words echoed in your ears and rebounded from the walls, clamoring over one another until they were indecipherable. With all your senses overloaded, all you knew to do was to lash out. You rolled low to the ground to avoid whatever these new threats might be doing, then started to kick out wildly. What you assumed were limbs snapped under your lashing blows, and screams of pain started to fill the air until your attackers too were on the ground. Then you stood again, rubbing at your eyes and shouting out for everything to stop.

Another figure came into view, blurry and fast as it was. This one was black, but with something new. Flashes of crimson, vaguely dancing about like an eternal flame at the corners of your vision. You were unable to see their approach before it was too late – something grabbed one of your arms, a powerful blow was dealt to your stomach, and your entire world began to turn upside down. The figure called something out as it fell, so close that it was as if it were putting a megaphone directly to your ear. An impact came on your skull, and you felt the world begin to spin, but you remained conscious. More voices rang out as you struggled against the forces holding you down. The person on your back called out something that sounded almost calm. They pushed you against the cold steel with all their might, your head mashing against the steel in a single motion.

You hit the ground headfirst, stunning you and causing the room around you to spin, undoing what little your vision had improved so far. You took a moment to orient yourself and began to push up off the floor. Some progress was made, but whatever had knocked you down had begun to apply enough leverage to keep you down. With you held to the floor, it leaned in and whispered something. You couldn't tell what it was, but in trying to understand the words you held your head still for just a moment.

“тихо, спокойный.”

_”What the fuck does that mean?”_

The sounds were meaningless to you, but they got you to stop struggling for a moment as you contemplated them. They were loud, incredibly so, especially since they were spoken directly into your ear, but they did not disturb you in the same way that the other noises did. As loud as they were you could tell they were whispered calmly. They were spoken without aggression, despite the situation, and though the tone sounded dangerous it did not seem hostile.

You were still preparing to struggle as the other voices kept up and a loud tapping sound reverberated through the room, but the voice returned. This time you couldn’t even make out many of the words, just a cacophony of sounds, but they were so soothing. There was a melody to them, a rhythm that had you gently humming along before you even understood what you were doing. It helped that the voice performed it perfectly, and for as loud as it was, sounded beautiful.

You realized that the presence, aside from holding you down, was not hurting you in any way. In fact, it was barely applying any other pressure. It just continued to sing in that sweet, soft voice. These people had come in, whoever _they_ were, before you had even broken free, so it didn’t seem like they were trying to keep you captured. It could have been a rescue effort. They could have been allies of yours; you certainly wouldn’t remember if they were. They could be enemies, too, your captors or worse. But if they were, you didn’t have the ability to fight back, not as stunned as you were by this overload to your senses and with as many as you seemed to be facing.

You laid your head on the ground and slowly ceased your struggling, shutting your eyes to drown out some of the light. A soft pinch came at your neck, upsetting you for a moment, but in a moment it faded away. Your senses began to return somewhat, feeling clearer and less overpowering.

“I- what are you doing, I can-“

“More!”

The pinching intensified, and a moment later your senses shut down completely.


	2. Snakes on a Plane

“Wake up, or I’ll do it again.”

The words were gone long before the pain was. Your entire face was lighting up on the right side, and once again your eyes were overstimulated, even before you opened them. It was not quite so bad this time, though, as when you were… well, you still weren’t sure what happened before you passed out, but whatever it had been, it wasn't exactly pleasant.

“I can see you movin’. Go ahead and open those eyes of yours, or I’ll have Natasha tape them open for you.”

You didn’t recognize the voice, but at least this time you could hear voices clearly. You weren't sure who Natasha was, but knowing that having your eyes taped open was always a bad thing, you slowly started to pry them open. It wasn’t easy – judging by the pinpricks of light burning into your retinas, there were lightbulbs of one variety or another pointed almost directly at your face. You were chained to the wall again, only this time it was even more restrictive; you could barely twitch without feeling a tinge of pain as you found the limits of your mobility.

“Wh- where am-“

“We ask the questions around here,” the same voice continued. Your eyes were adjusting to the light surprisingly rapidly, and already you could make out two silhouettes in enough detail to see a bulkier one with smoother edges, as well as a slimmer, only slightly shorter person with curves. You recognized the voice as male, but couldn't place enough details to decide which figure was speaking.

“Why should I answer? Last I checked, I barely got out of my chains, and now I’m back in them.”

“I’m pretty sure I just told you I’m asking the questions.”

The shadow moved forward faster than you were expecting – not that you were capable of defending yourself anyway – and landed a resounding slap to your head. It was like they had fired a gun beside your ear, the sound nearly an explosion and resounding in your mind for several minutes afterward.

“What the fuck did you do to me, why is everything so loud?”

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

Grateful that he wasn’t at least slapping you again, you turned your eyes forward. The man standing in front of you – blurry as he was – appeared to be a tall black man wearing a trench coat, his gaze unwavering even though it came from only a single eye.

“You… everything’s so loud… so damn bright,” you grunted out. “You gave me something – a stimulant, or a major hangover.”

“I’ll give you a lot worse before this is over. But so far, the most I’ve given you was a good slap. Seems like you need it too, judging by how much of an attitude you’re copping with the guys that rescued you.”

“Different sights, same chains,” you grumbled, trying desperately to focus your senses. The more you did, the more you could slowly make out details.

“These ones come off a lot easier,” the female promised, stepping forward. You could make out bright red hair, a skintight black suit, and a form that would kill most any man on sight. She leaned in, touching your face where you’d been slapped. The pain reignited a little, but more than that, you were impressed with how soft her hands were. She gently caressed you, and your eyes finally saw well enough to notice an almost concerned tone behind those green irises.

“All you have to do is help us.”

“Help you with what, exactly? I don’t know what I could do for you - I can't remember anything except being bound in chains, before *and* after you woke me up."

“Oh really?" The man was speaking again, stepping forward and raising his voice. "Then care to explain why you attacked my men when they were raiding the facility holding you? Seems like you ought to be grateful, but instead, you put four of my men in the hospital. One of them almost didn’t make it back out.”

“I could barely see,” you grumbled, “everything was so loud… still is, but it’s easier to focus now. I had just gotten out of my restraints and someone jammed me in the stomach. Excuse me if I reacted a little harshly after my imprisonment was followed with assault.”

“And excuse me if I follow your attitude with some of my own. Let me be clear here, the agents I sent into that room were four of the best I had. You took all of them down without a single bruise. Took my number one to finally get you to the ground, and we couldn’t even subdue you without enough sedative to kill any ordinary person. You moved faster and hit harder than any soldier we ran into on our way into that facility, and last I checked, they don’t put highly trained HYDRA agents on bondage duty.”

“Yeah? Well I’m no HYDRA,” you spat. “I don’t even know what the hell that is.”

“Well, what do you know?”

“Why should I tell you?”

“Because I’m the one with the key to those cuffs. And nobody’s breaking into this base,” the man said dangerously. “You don’t want to cooperate? I’ll walk out of here and leave you hanging until you change your mind. Could be a while before I decide to check.”

You were torn between a desire to yell obscenities at the arrogant man until he left you alone, and an equal desire to be free of chains for more than five minutes for the first time you could remember. In the end, you realized he was probably right. Even if someone did come to rescue you, it probably wouldn’t end any better for you than this had. Didn’t mean he was going to like your answer.

“Nothing. I don’t… I don’t remember anything.”

“You really expect me to believe that? I’m not asking for trade secrets, _yet_,” he emphasized, “so at least tell me why they put you up there. Who knows, maybe we’re on the same team.”

“I’m not lying. You have no reason to believe me, but I’m not. Whatever they did to me, it gave me amnesia. I… I don’t even remember my name.”

The woman hadn’t backed far away to begin with, but she closed the distance. Looking into your eyes, she gently rested a hand on your shoulder, fingers loosely draped over the back of your neck.

“Do you really not remember your name? Are you telling us the truth?”

She was so sincere you almost thought she wasn’t putting on an act, but despite your wishes for that to be true it definitely wasn’t. No way anyone sympathetic to your cause was here for an interrogation. Not that it mattered at this point.

“No, I don’t… and yes, I am telling the truth. I don’t know who these HYDRA people are, but I’ll do anything I can to help you get them. Whatever else they’ve done to me, they stole my memories, who I am at my core. I’ll do anything to get it back.”

“Well, it's… that might not be the whole truth, but it's definitely not a lie," she said quietly, although not speaking to you, stepping back away. You weren’t sure why she suddenly judged that, but you were grateful all the same.

“So you think it’s really amnesia?”

“It's something strong, whatever it is, I can guarantee that.”

“So let me get this straight,” the black man said, walking up to you with a glare that made it clear who he was addressing. “You have no memory of who you are. You don’t know where you were being held, or why you were there. You can’t give us any useful information, and you don’t even know who we are, and you attacked us not because we’re your enemy, but because you just didn’t know any better?”

He said the last part with the empathy and concern of a serial killer, while managing to also pull off the voice you’d use to speak with a child. It was impressive, honestly, and incredibly annoying.

“Yes. I don’t care if you believe me or not, it’s true.”

“You should care. Because right now, I’m the one standing between you and that door. And until I get the information that I need, _you_ don’t get to pass through it.”

Apparently finished with you, the man left quickly. The female stuck around for a moment, hesitating before she left the door. Her eyes met yours, and now that she was alone, you noticed something there. A cold hardness, unmoved despite the way she’d seemed so sympathetic moments ago.

“You should cooperate with us, whatever comes next.”

You rattled your restraints, an unspoken way of asking why they deserved your trust or cooperation.

“If you’re telling the truth, we’re your best shot at regaining your memories, or at least finding out who you were. And if you’re lying…”

“If I’m lying, you’ll kill me?”

“Not if you help us.”

On that dark note, she left, turning away and walking out of the room, leaving you alone once again. The lights slowly dimmed until they were at a more reasonable level, meaning for once you weren’t overwhelmed by stimulation. Only one word could encompass your feelings at that moment, one complex and deep enough to embody the full range of your emotions.

“Fuck.”


	3. Tea and Bullets

“This is… incredibly uncomfortable.”

“Well, if it would make you feel better, I could handcuff you to the chair.”

“Seems more in character, from what little I know of you,” you grumbled. Despite the tension of your last meeting, everything had reversed itself now. The man and woman from before had returned, this time with another man in tow, a younger man with a quiver strapped to his back. You’d even gotten to learn their names – Nick Fury, Natasha Romanov, and… well, the last one wasn’t a name. He insisted on being called Hawkeye. Thankfully one of the others had eventually called him Clint, but you were still missing a last name.

All of you were sitting around an ordinary table that had been hauled in shortly before their arrival. They’d brought with them a platter of cookies and coffee, both of which you’d been extremely hesitant to taste, but found tolerable and hopefully drug-free. Considering you were still conscious and didn’t feel inebriated, you were hoping that was the case. Perhaps the food being drugged would’ve been for the best, though; all this forced friendliness was so awkward it made you physically uncomfortable.

“You know, I thought you’d be a little more appreciative. Trust is a hard thing to come by in these parts, and I’m giving you a lot with very little in return.”

“I’m giving you a lot. My cooperation, for one, as little as that seems to be worth to you.”

“Without your memories it’s impossible for you to help us with our investigation. But we may still have some use for you, if we can figure out what they did.”

“Messed with all of my senses, that’s for damn sure.”

You’d slowly experimented, after being left alone (and conscious) for the first time. You didn’t remember what your life was like before you woke up that first time, but you were obviously more perceptive than the others. Nick and Natasha had shown no signs of being bothered by the lights, but even when they were turned away you were nearly overwhelmed. When they returned, you heard footsteps for almost a minute before they finally arrived, and you could hear their voices through the steel. That one set Fury on edge- apparently, the rooms were supposed to be soundproofed.

“Well, your senses are what we’re here to test,” Natasha said, pulling out a card covered in sentences. Each was smaller than the last, to the point that you couldn’t quite read the bottom two.

“What’s the smallest line you can read?”

” _Two fold two and three fold three, but four folds a quarter and five folds no more._ Is that supposed to be gibberish, or am I hallucinating too?”

All three of them exchanged a knowing glance.

“Which line is that?”

“Uh, fourth from the bottom. Can’t quite make out the one below it, something about _‘doctors don’t discuss dysfunction, they diagnose disease’_, but nothing before or after that. What the hell have you got me reading?”

“Something no human should be able to pick out. Think my record is line twelve,” Clint said, eyeing both of them. “Where’d you find this one, again?”

“HYDRA base.”

“What the hell is HYDRA? I’m being cooperative, could you guys at least give me a clue of who these guys are?”

“An organization. One you don’t want to be a part of,” Fury said, eyes cold as iced steel.

“This is going nowhere,” you muttered, rubbing your eyes. “Look, if you guys are so worried about me being some weird-ass sleeper agent or whatever the fuck a HYDRA is, why not just let me go? Kick me out of your super-secret base and let me go. Give me some cash for an apartment and I’ll find a job flipping burgers or something until I can get myself on my feet. Can’t cause much harm if I’m working sixty hours a week to pay rent.”

“Believe me, there’s nothing that would make me happier than to get you the hell out of my hair,” Fury said, standing up from the table. “But until we know what they did to you and know you won’t be a danger to yourself or anyone else, we can’t do that.”

“What hair,” you grumbled sarcastically as he walked toward the door. He didn’t acknowledge your comment, but you saw Clint roll his eyes. Must’ve been a pretty common joke.

“I’m going to run your charitable donation by the lab. You three keep each other company until I get back.”

“Seriously, I know you were rougher than you needed to be,” you shouted before the door closed, rubbing your arm where they’d put the needle. Feeling it go under your skin had been like sticking hot coals in your eye sockets – apparently, pain was something else that got enhanced, to one degree or another.

The silence after your last words echoed a few times was deafening. Both of them stared directly at you, not wavering in the slightest but not engaging you in any other way. You tried to return the looks, but it was too much, and they didn’t seem to care when you met their gazes.

“So… you’re Russian?”

Not much of a question, more of an icebreaker, but it was all you could come up with under pressure. Natasha’s expression didn’t change as you eventually relented on trying to keep silent, but at least she responded. 

“Name kind of gives it away, huh?”

“You have a nice singing voice.”

At that, she actually raised an eyebrow. “You remember that? Thought you told Fury you couldn’t see anyone’s face because it was all too blurry.”

“I couldn’t,” you admitted. “But I caught a glimpse of red before something knocked me on my ass, and then someone singing to me in Russian. That’s… actually why I stopped fighting back. Not many murderers or kidnappers who will sing to you. Plus, in all that chaos, it was kind of soothing. You have a beautiful singing voice.”

“I keep trying to get her on The Voice, but she always turns me down,” Clint said, leaning back in his chair. “She keeps saying something about secret identities, but she kind of published our files worldwide last year, so I don’t think that flies anymore.”

“That doesn’t mean I want to parade myself on national TV. Or degrade myself for entertainment,” Natasha deadpanned.

“I don’t… really know any Russian,” you began, scratching at an ear, “but I’m guessing that’s what you were singing, unless you know another language.”

“She knows twelve, actually. I know thirteen,” Clint boasted, looking up at the sky if as if he were trying to strike a pose in his chair.

“Pig Latin is _not_ a language,” Natasha chided, for once focusing her glare on someone else. "More importantly, if you have no memory, how do you know that's Russian?"

"I, uh… I don't think I know?"

You stumbled over your own words, unsure of where the realization had come from. It seemed right, although you still had no idea what any of the words she'd spoken or the lyrics she'd sung actually meant. Russian sounded right, but there was no quick thought in your head as to how you had learned such.

“Not sure. I recognize it, but I don't have any idea why. Anyway…” you said quietly, trying to keep the conversation going. “nobody here has an accent, except you, and it’s super subtle. I guess I wouldn’t recognize an accent if you’re all from the same country as wherever I’m from, but you won’t tell me where we are, so… why did you leave Russia for wherever the hell this is?”

“Didn’t like the view.”

As laden with sarcasm as that answer was, Natasha’s eyes told you that you weren’t getting a better answer. Something in Clint’s eyes matched it, but in those at least you could see a bit of empathy. Apparently this was not a topic to broach so early in whatever screwed up relationship the four of you had.

“I hope I didn’t miss anything too fun.” Fury strode into the room with the same cool and detached demeanor he'd left with.

“Seriously. American Idol, new life, new job, no more killing. You too, Fury – pull some strings, you could be the asshole judge with daddy issues. Think you can pull off a British accent?”

“Lets see what kind of accent you can pull after your next twenty assignments are in northern Siberia,” Fury countered, sitting down at the table. 

“Fair enough, anonymity it is. Or not,” Clint said with a shrug.

“So, how long until my blood work gets done?” You asked Fury, ready to move on past the silliness and finally get out of this room.

“A few hours,” Fury said quietly, nodding toward the door. “Once it’s done, we’ll see about letting you out of here. For now, start thinking about what you want to do with yourself. If you _are_ telling the truth, you’re in a strange place with no memories, no skills, and no identity. You wouldn’t last a week in the civilian world, no matter how far you can see, or what you happen to overhear. You’ve got no income, no home, and no job. You may not have a past any more, but if you help us, you just might have a future.”

“Sounds like a campaign slogan to me. Pretty sure nobody ever follows through on those, either. Are you really trying to tell me you’d let me go from prisoner to employee of the month?”

All three of them stood up together in unison, making you wonder how much of this was rehearsed. Natasha and Clint were gone in a moment, striding for the door like someone had just cut the cheese, big time. Fury stuck around for a moment, looking over his shoulder at the door frame.

“There’s a lot of people in this world. Most of them aren’t gonna be remembered the day after they die, so forget about regaining your memories, you’re just ahead of the curve. Stop thinking about who you were, and start thinking about who you want to be. HYDRA wasn’t working on the world’s best laser eye surgery, or a new kind of hearing implants. Whatever they did to you is big. Start thinking about how you want to use it, and how you want people to remember you, even when you can’t remember yourself.”

“Still a nice slogan, Fury for president, Fury for Change, **vote Fury!**” you shouted petulantly, sighing as the door slammed shut behind him. You slammed your head onto the desk, the pain a welcome relief from the constant questions that you had running through your mind. You wished that for once Fury would answer more questions than he raised.

“I’m never getting out of here, am I?”

Nobody ever dared to answer that question, no matter how many times you asked.


	4. Home Sweet Hell

“And this,” Fury said, gesturing inside, “is your room.”

You looked around with the least emotional face you could muster, eyeing all two of the objects in the room – a bed, and a nightstand. It couldn’t have been more Spartan if Leonidas himself designed it. Wait, no, actually you’d just gotten out of a cell. Best not to antagonize Fury by criticizing his home decorating skills.

“So, I don’t get to see your rooms? Let me guess, personal entertainment centers with cable internet, and PCs that could make Crysis look like Pong,” you murmured, staring at the three of them, mostly because there was nothing else in the room worth checking out.

Well, perhaps what was best wasn’t always what you wanted. Antagonizing Fury had become a bit of a pastime, after all.

“Doesn’t matter what they have. You’re not in chains, and that’s something worth trading a thousand years of free cable for,” Fury said, keeping a level gaze despite your antagonizing him. “From here on out, you’re not my problem anymore. Agents Barton and Romanov will be keeping you in check, and helping you try to remember anything that might be of use to us. Once we’re convinced we have all the intel we’re going to get, and that you’re not a threat to us or any civilians, we’ll see about getting you a few more luxuries. Like hot water.”

“Oh, way to drop a bombshell and just walk out,” you shouted as Fury made for the exit door. “Seriously, no hot water?”

“Seriously,” Clint promised, nodding his head. “Fury doesn’t like spending resources on unknowns.”

“Well… what now?”

“Now we play psychiatrist,” Clint said, a little too excitedly. “Ever done a Rorschach test?”

“Clint, for the last time, your sketchbook is not a Rorschach test.”

“The APA disagrees with you.”

“No, they don’t.”

You were sad to say you had a feeling you’d miss Fury before too long. At least he didn’t waste time.

~~~~

It was two-thirty in the morning, but sleep was not coming easily. Maybe your body wasn’t on schedule? Who knew what your sleep schedule had been like in that HYDRA base, or what it had been before that. More importantly, how long had you been in a cell, with no concept of time? It could’ve easily been any of that, but it probably wasn’t. More likely than not, now that you were finally somewhere you felt a little safe, you were starting to think more about how awful the situation you were in was. You’d been so focused on trying to stay alive and/or not get tortured that the full impact hadn’t really hit yet, but you were starting to get there. As you dug through the refrigerator, you pondered what having no past would mean for your future.

“No identity, no work history, no social security number, no home, no job, no savings, no-“

You paused, letting out a long sigh.

“Nothing. Not even a name. Where do I go from here? I don’t even know what foods I like, but I don’t think it’s… whatever the hell this is,” you grumbled, picking up a container of what appeared to be kebabs.

“Shashlyk. And if you eat it, you die,” Natasha’s voice promised. You turned to the doorway to find her standing there, still in uniform, with raised eyebrows hovering over two eyes locked on the tub with laser-like precision. You very carefully set it down, then turned to face her.

“Sorry, midnight snack. Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“No big deal,” she shrugged. “Wasn’t sleeping anyway.”

“Watching me, huh?” You asked, pretty sure this woman had no trouble sleeping when she needed to.

“You catch on fast,” Natasha replied, smirking at you. You were starting to notice that even when she smiled, her eyes didn’t always catch on.

“Lot of room up here to learn, when half of it’s been wiped.”

The defeat in your voice must have reached her, because she seemed to take pity on you. She strode over to the refrigerator and plucked a box free. Bachelor’s special; a TV dinner.

“Half the food in here will wind up with you on a wanted list somewhere just for touching it, you need a food guide. Eat this. Fury bought them to cut back on the budget, but Clint’s too lazy to microwave them for just a mediocre filler, and I’d rather cook my own food than touch one.”

“Just right for the prisoner, huh?” You replied, smirking a little as you took it. “Thank you, though. I appreciate you trying to keep me alive. I think.”

“You’re not a prisoner,” Natasha said. “If you were, you’d still be in a cell.”

“Doesn’t need bars to be a cell.”

“You do catch on quick,” Natasha said. She didn’t sound nearly as amused this time. You silently cut open the TV dinner and prepared it while thinking over your next words carefully. As bitter as you were about the whole situation, as much as you knew she was only here because you were up past midnight, you knew this was the closest to outreach you were going to get.

“Sorry, I should be a little more appreciative, I guess,” you began as you set the microwave and turned around to face her again. “As much as you guys are keeping me imprisoned, you did… technically free me first. I don’t know if you’re the good guys, bad guys, or somewhere in between, but you’re keeping me safe, awake, and out of chains. Thank you, for at least this much trust.”

“Two things. Nobody is as good or bad as you want them to be. Everyone’s somewhere in between.”

Natasha’s words carried the weight of experience. It seemed like the only times her eyes matched what she was saying were when she spoke so cynically it almost hurt to hear.

“What’s number two?”

“Food’s done,” Natasha said, tone immediately neutral again as the microwave went off a split second later. You were happy to have a subject change.

“Look, I- I’ll head back, alright? Don’t know if I’m gonna get much sleep, but there’s no sense in you having to be out here. I can at least let you go back to your room. Even if we aren’t sleeping, might as well enjoy somewhere to sit.”

“Very thoughtful.”

“I- I’m not trying to be an asshole. Really, I’m not,” you said, rubbing at your temples, staring at the cooked food and only just now realizing you had no appetite. “This is all just a little… depressing, I guess. Ever since I stopped worrying about being stuck in that cell for the rest of my life, all I can think about is not having a past, no way to live, no proof or even an idea of who I am. I gotta ask… was Fury serious about helping you guys? About... you know, whatever he was offering? I was too busy shouting at him, but did he offer me a job?”

Natasha eyed you for a long moment, looking you up and down – more than once. When her gaze settled on your eyes again, you saw something in them. Softness. But… false softness. Because buried under that was a cold and calculating gaze that you hadn’t seen focused on you since you were still in chains.

“Depends on what we find,” she explained quietly. “We don’t have the manpower we used to, but we’re still tracking down HYDRA bases. If we find anything with info that exonerates you, proves you aren’t one of them or trying to fool us, there’s no reason for us not to trust you. Failing that, if you cooperate and help us out, you might be able to get Fury to trust you enough to let you in. As much as he trusts anyone, anyway.”

“Reassuring,” You said, nodding and rolling your eyes at the same time. “But I guess that’s my only option. Might be the only way I can hope to figure out my past, too.”

Natasha strode over to you as you finally retrieved the dinner. You didn’t turn, but you could hear every step she took, and felt the warmth of her hand as she placed it on your shoulder.

“Word of advice, from someone who knows what she’s talking about,” Natasha whispered, her voice having a tone to it you didn’t quite recognize.

“Don’t worry so much about your past. Some things are worth forgetting.”

“Do you… know something about me?” You asked, stiffening up immediately.

“No.”

Nothing else. No details. By the time you turned she was gone, an impressive feat considering your ears were sharp enough to pick up on Clint’s snoring from here.

What the hell was that about?


	5. Shot in the Dark

A week passed, then two. Eventually you lost track of days – Fury found the marker you’d swiped from the kitchen and erased your tally marks. You thought about using blood on the bed sheets, but figured that it was better not to look like a crazy person to the people who determined your freedom. At least you still had a journal and pen you’d stolen from the kitchen’s junk drawer; they must not have done an inventory recently because nobody ever showed up to steal that back from you.

To keep your sanity, whenever you thought you were alone you started documenting all of your thoughts and actions, right down to what you had for breakfast. You weren’t expecting it to be therapeutic, but somehow, having a record of your time calmed you down. Maybe you were just afraid of losing your memory again, and wanted to have a record. Hell, even if these guys did rescue you, they seemed to be some kind of high-tech government operation. Maybe they’d wipe your mind when they set you free?

Speaking of which… you were thinking less and less these days that they were actually going to decide in your favor. Fury couldn’t even trust you with a Sharpie, why would he trust you working for him? Or even living your own life. You were going to have to take matters into your own hands… maybe once you were on your own, you could go out and find hints to your past that way.

But first you had to get past two highly-trained super spies, and then whatever security systems they had put in place. The second one seemed like a cakewalk compared to the first. Though, you had noticed a pretty significant lapse in one particular area. One single thing that might give you an opening – the only visible weakness in their eternal vigilance.

American Idol.

As ridiculous as it sounded, it seemed like your best shot. Clint was damn near obsessed with the thing – if you had known anything about the show in your former life, you couldn’t imagine that it was as much as you did now. The past few weeks had taught you all about the damn thing, and you now knew two very important things. When the show aired, and Clint’s favorite singer. That was your time to strike.

“Seriously, I was in the middle of training,” Natasha complained, leaning as far as possible from Clint. He was enraptured, leaning in with his eyes focused on what you assumed was some famous pop song they were just beginning the opening notes of.

“You can’t miss this, we’re three weeks from the finale! People wait all year for this, I’m not gonna let you spoil it with a workout, even if you don’t properly appreciate the beauty we’re about to witness. Just listen to that voice!”

Clint cranked up the volume to the point that you could barely hear yourself think, let alone hear someone sneaking by, but that wasn’t enough for you to trust. More importantly, the only exit to the building that you could find so far was directly through the living room. Even Clint wouldn’t miss you coming through the room, no matter how great his attachment to the show may have been.  
Which was exactly why you weren’t going to go out the door, you were going out the ventilation shaft. It was a tiny little ventilation grate in the training room that must have been needed to keep the stench of hours of sweat out. It was about shoulder width, surprisingly, which was probably going to be uncomfortable if there were any corners, but might just be enough to get you out. And then… that was where the plan ended.

You were aware, somewhere, that your plan had many, many flaws, including that you had no idea if the shaft led outside or just to another part of whatever base you were in,but as you crept down toward the training room, you couldn’t think of a better one. The door was still open, just a crack – a miracle if there was one, because if Natasha had locked it on her way out you’d have been defeated before you even got started. Slowly pressing the door open, praying for the hinges not to squeak, you made your way inside and glanced around. Everything seemed fine, no alarms blaring, and nothing out of place except-

Alarm bells flared in your head as you caught sight of a glock sitting on one of the shelves near the far side of the room, next to the sound system for the gym area and a pair of loose dumbbells. It was Natasha’s, no doubt about that – she’d shown it off not-too-subtly too many times as an intimidation tactic. But there was no way in hell she’d ever leave it. Leaving a weapon unattended was like leaving an arm behind for Natasha, at least judging by how you’d never seen it out of her holster or hands. Hell, she probably slept with the damn thing.

But you didn’t have much time to process that, because as you strode to the center of the room, the door slammed shut behind you. You whirled to find Natasha standing there, one hand at the other gun on her hip and the other one out protectively by her waist.

“What are you doing in here? You’re not supposed to be in the training room unsupervised,” Natasha said, eyes narrowing.

“I, uh- I thought I dropped something in here earlier,” you lied with absolutely no conviction.

“What?” Natasha asked, raising an eyebrow. She obviously didn’t believe you, not only because it was a shitty excuse but because they hadn’t allowed you to own anything – not even a sharpie. You were lucky they let you have clothes.

“I, uh, I forgot- FUCK IT!”

You weren’t sure why you shouted before you moved, seemed like a pretty poor way to get a sneak attack in, but you were panicking. You grabbed the gun off of the counter and immediately threw it at Natasha’s head. She ducked, the sound of metal on metal echoing from the hall behind her, but by then you were already gone, dashing toward the vent.

You didn’t have the time to quietly remove the screws from the grate (not that you’d had a plan anyway, since you had no screwdriver) with a super-spy hot on your heels. Not to mention you’d just given her a weapon, depending on how far behind her it landed. That meant one thing – smash. The question was, how lucky were you?

You jumped into the air a few feet away from the wall, charging at maximum speed. The grate was about three feet wide and three feet tall, giving you a decently sized target, but it wasn’t like you’d done something like this before. You ended up hitting a little above the middle, but your body weight and momentum gave you enough force to break the grate, bending it nearly in half and snapping loose three of the four screws. Thankfully it remained mostly intact, but a few broken bits did scrape through your pants and cut your legs lightly. You fully hit the ground a moment later,, feet vaguely tangled in the bent metal.

You crawled backward forcefully, kicking the grate out of your way and snapping loose the last screw. Natasha was on the other end of the room, rushing after you, but the element of surprise was giving you enough of a head start that by the time she was reaching the vent shaft, you were several feet inside and making your way further.

“Stop, we’re the only ones who can help find out who you were!”

“I had a life out there, I’m not going to stay stuck here forever just because you don’t trust me,” you shouted back, still fighting your way down. The vent seemed to be widening a little bit, enough to give you room to turn around, but you were growing near a whirring noise, which made you nervous. If there was an industrial fan you were pretty sure that your escape had ended, unless you could break it too.

As you rounded a corner, there was a large open area in front of you, completely un-duct-like. In fact it was more like a room - a room with metal walls and dim lighting, but still a room. There, you came face-to-face with the source of the noise… and it was not an industrial fan. It was a box fan. The kind that most people left sitting on a counter in their living room, which probably explained why next to it was Clint sitting in a lawn chair, his bow halfheartedly thrown across his lap, with a Sudoku book open in his hands.

“Oh, come on. You didn’t really think we’d have air vents?” Clint asked without looking over his book. “That’s like, the most cliché thing in any spy movie! We have compressed oxygen tanks that get rotated out regularly, and exhaust valves – neither of which you’re going to find. Trust me, I’ve tried, and it even took *me* a while. I’m pretty comfortable in hard-to-reach places, if you can’t tell. Now, are you going to go back the easy way, or the hard way?”

“Why would I fight?” You asked, shrugging and slumping your body. “There’s no exit.”

“Fight? No, I meant are you going to crawl back out the “air vents” or are you gonna use the door to the living room,” Clint said, reaching over and pushing open a panel on the wall. The sounds of American Idol drifted through, still going.

“I just- I don’t get you people,” you said, sighing and slumping into the floor.

“What’s there to get? It’s American Idol!”

“Just- just leave me in here.”

“Oh, I get it, you’re a vent kind of guy! Nice, I like perches, myself,” Clint said, shooting you a finger-gun salute as he walked out the door and shut it behind him.

You thought about laughing. You wanted to. Needed to. Would have.

If you thought you were ever getting out of there.


	6. Wary, Weary, Worn.

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

“That doesn’t work anymore.”

“Last I checked, you were the one who tried to break out, but all of a sudden we’re the bad guys here?”

“Yes, how _dare_ your captive try to free themselves? That’s _so** immoral**_,” you practically shouted, despite being right up in Fury’s face. Though your spirits had been dampened by your failed escape, since then you had become more energetic if anything, more hostile and firm in your resistance to their efforts.

“You tried to assault one of my agents, and destroyed my property on your way out.”

“I didn't want to hurt her. If I did, I’d have shot her.”

“If you wanted to hurt her, you'd be dead.”

The icy stare-down between you two felt almost invigorating. As much as Fury used to scare you, having nothing to lose – not even memories – made someone pretty bold. The worst thing he could do was kill you, and that was not as frightening of an outcome as it used to be.

“We are holding you here because the work that we’re doing could save lives,” Fury said simply, abandoning his anger, or at least doing a damn good job of hiding it. The sudden shift put you on edge.

“What about my life? What about-“

“**But**,” Fury interrupted, holding up his hand, “we’re doing extra work – slowing down our progress on life-saving matters, I might add – to do what we can to help you. This isn’t black-and-white morality stuff here, it’s about more than means and ends.”

“Then tell me what you learned so far,” you said, eyeing the nurses behind Fury with a cold glare. “Because I may not remember much, but I don’t need to know much to understand that you wouldn’t need this much blood if you weren’t looking for something. Or trying to understand something you already found.”

“That’s on a need-to-know basis, and you-“

“And I sure as shit need to know. Or I can bite my tongue off when I go back to my room tonight and you can hope whatever blood you suck up off the floor is enough to figure it out.”

“…”

Fury was silent for a long moment. Natasha and Clint, both standing in the corners of the room, shifted just enough to eye each other.

“You two, out, now.”

The nurses vanished in an instant, apparently quite grateful to be out of the room. You’d have thought all of Fury’s employees were used to this kind of thing, but apparently not. Maybe nobody else stood up to him… but you doubted that.

“We still don’t have anything concrete on what HYDRA did to you.”

“Bullshit,” you replied with no hesitation.

“I said _concrete_. Now you can let me talk, or we can walk out of here until you’re done with this little fit you’re having today,” Fury said, with a look that was a mixture between a father ready to pull the car off the road and a soldier ready to pull the trigger.

When you didn’t speak, Fury began to pace back and forth, his eyes never leaving you as he started to speak again.

“Your cells have been altered; there’s evidence of genetic modification, and some trace elements we haven’t identified yet. We haven’t determined the point, but given the source of the modification, it seems likely to be some kind of combat adaptation.”

“So, what, you’re keeping me locked up in here because you think I’m some kind of weapon?”

“At first, yes. Now we just want to know what they did to you, so we can figure out how to reverse engineer it, create a cure if need-be.”

“You think a cure could give me my memories back?” Suddenly, there was a slim thread of hope. But the look in Fury’s eyes dashed it quickly.

“Although we don’t know exactly what was done to you, it seems unlikely that the components we’ve isolated so far would’ve affected your memory. It’s possible, but unlikely. We’re focusing our efforts on searching through the data files at the base. Most of it was set to wipe when the base came under attack, but our techs are recovering as much as they can. So far, all we know is that the treatment was based off another subject, though only in theory.”

“What subject is that?” You asked, looking around.

“You think you’ll _remember_ them?” Fury asked, raising an eyebrow to match his impressive amounts of sarcasm.

“Point taken.”

“Steve Rogers, Captain America. The information isn’t exactly classified, there’s no harm in sharing it, though I imagine that it won’t do you much good. All you need to know is that if HYDRA was able to perfect it, they could create an elite strike force that could take out an entire army.”

“Well, I hate to break it to you, but it seems like they’re a long ways off,” you said, glancing at yourself. You were fit, but superhuman? Didn’t seem likely. “If this is the best they can do, you must have been feeding your agents back there steroids from birth. I couldn’t even take one of them down.”

“You might be right. But I don’t take chances,” Fury replied. “Which is why we need another sample.”

“…go ahead, bring them back in.”

Fury nodded and marched to the door. As the nurses set up around you, you were lost in thought for a long while. Trying to figure out what you were going to do from here. You had no way of knowing if Fury was serious about letting you go free, much less about giving you a job, and if none of that was true, you had nothing to lose, but also nothing to gain.

A lifetime of this? Just thinking about that had you gnawing on your tongue already.


	7. Clint 'Kegger' Barton

“I literally don’t believe that that isn’t some kind of poison.”

“I mean, if you wanna get technical, it is.”

“Fuck’s sake Clint,” you sighed, leaning back onto the couch. “How the hell can I trust this? This is literally the most outrageous thing you’ve done.”

Clint let out a long, healthy laugh, slamming his palm onto his forehead repeatedly until you were staring at him as if he were insane, laughing outlandishly. When he finally stopped he rolled his eyes and then met your gaze with an impish smirk.

“Sorry, this isn’t even the most outrageous thing I’ve done _this week_. Ever tried brushing your teeth while hanging upside down and cooking dinner? Trust me, it’s harder than it sounds.”

“I want to ask why, but I don’t want to know the answer,” you said, collapsing with your head in your hands. “No, seriously, Clint, there is _no_ way you smuggled in an entire keg. Fury laced that shit with mind control drugs, or some kind of memory wipe stuff you guys have secretly been giving me, and you’re immune to it because of fucking science, and _I hate how paranoid you people have made me!”_

“Shut up,” Clint said, thrusting a solo cup into your hand. “Drink, and watch the game.”

“I don’t even think I like football!”

“Good. Drink more,” Clint said, tipping his own glass back. “Black it out.”

“I’ve got enough blacked out, thanks,” you muttered, rolling your eyes.

“Hey, don’t worry so much about that,” Clint said. “Seriously, if booze isn’t good enough, what do you want? You might be on lockdown, but I could’ve been Han Solo in another life. Not much I can’t get past ol’ Fury.”

“Anything not edible. Actually, you guys could probably just build something that injects me with it in my sleep…”

“You’re a real downer, you know that?” Clint said, chugging back another glass and dipping down to refill at the keg. 

“My life hasn’t exactly been sunshine and roses. Probably, anyway, considering I can’t remember any of it.”

“Hey, if you’re that worried about it you should try to trust us a little more,” Clint said, tilting his fresh pint toward you. “If anyone has the tech or the resources to figure out who you were and to try to help you, it’s gotta be SHIELD.”

“Yeah, but that’s only if you guys have a vested interest in helping me get better,” you pointed out, raising a finger to his unending positivity.

“Do you know what SHIELD stands for?” Clint paused for a moment after he said that, eyes glued to the ceiling. “Stupid question, I know. Well, it stands for Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division. We’re not some shady backwater terrorist organization, and we’re not a bunch of evil scientists looking to use you as some kind of guinea pig. We’re more like a supersized Homeland Security division than anything. But with cooler toys.”

“I didn’t know government agencies were in the habit of holding people against their will… then again, sounds about right,” you chuckled.

“Hey, it’s not exactly constitutional, but when we bend the rules it’s because a lot of good people could die if we don’t. I’m not promising you anything, but if Fury finds out more about your past, he’s gonna let you know. If you want to know, that is. Actually, I guess nobody’s really asked you so far… what do you want your past to be like? Sports star, world-renowned scientist, famous author, fashion model… genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, what?”

“I… I don’t know enough about even myself to answer that,” you said honestly, shrugging your shoulders. The topic was something you’d thought about occasionally but were still too uncomfortable to really press on.

“C’mon, you sit here and watch TV with me all day, you know what the glitz and the glamour of the outside world is. What’s the most appealing part?”

“I guess none of that really sounds very appealing.” You let out a long sigh, shaking your head as soon as the list was rattled off. “I think I’m done being the focus of attention for a while after this… if I could have a comfortable life, I’d consider that a win. Otherwise, I just want to be left alone for a while. I hope that I have a family, and that I can find them, but not if I’ve been gone twenty years or something. I want to just come back, shed a few tears, and go back to some kind of normal life. Or if not normal, at least less confined.”

“And what are you afraid it will be?”

You glanced over to Clint, but despite the slight edge to his voice he genuinely looked curious, still gazing at the screen and sipping lightly on his drink. You noticed for the first time that he hadn’t refilled it in a lot longer than the past few top-offs.

“I don’t know. I don’t think I want to, either.”

“Oh, come on, you have to be afraid of something. You woke up in a cold storage room, chained to the wall. The guys that broke in with guns were the _good_ guys, so there’s no way you aren’t scared of what the bad guys must be like!”

“No matter how many times you say it, I’m still not convinced on who is good or bad,” you growled, a little annoyed with how much Clint seemed to be trying to hammer that point home. “I’ll judge based on actions, thanks. So far they haven’t exactly been terribly in your favor. But to answer your question, yeah, I could be a murderer. A backwater terrorist. An evil scientist. A dictator, a serial killer, an assassin – I could be a lot of things, but what terrifies me right now most is that at least I can’t _remember_ the last prison I was kept in!”

You panted, only just realizing how loudly you’d been shouting. Clint never moved, barely even glanced away from the television as you continued your angry ranting. When you finally stopped he slowly reached forward with the remote, clicking off the power and turning to face you. His face was slightly weary and yet a soft smile touched his cheeks.

“Alright, maybe that was a little ham-handed. Truth is, SHIELD doesn’t always come off as the good guys, even to the people that work here. They’ve done a lot of sketchy stuff, which is kind of what put us in the bind we’re in now to begin with. It’s got scars, and they run deep. So does every person that works with us. But at the end of the day, none of that matters, because every action we take is one we think is right. You’re not gonna be able to evaluate SHIELD for what it is – not while you’re stuck here. But why don’t you try learning more about the people that work here? You already know I’ll talk with you any time, but if you want a real challenge, try getting Fury or Natasha to open up a little more. Actually, if you get Natasha to open up, let me know, because if you can talk her into that, I’m gonna be your Vice President one day.”

You rolled your eyes as Clint flicked the TV back on without giving you much time to respond. It was hard to stay mad at him, when he seemed to be the only one among the three you constantly dealt with who empathized with your plight on a level beyond acting. Perhaps… perhaps if he could show a bit of genuine care, you could at least make an effort to show him a bit of trust.

You grabbed a cup at last and leaned further into the cushions, wondering curiously if either team had been your favorite back before you lost your memories.


	8. A Harsh Mistress

After Clint’s keg party, you were honestly a little relieved when the next day you found Natasha sitting out in the front room. She usually spent all her time in the training room – except, of course, when Clint wasn’t there to watch the front door. So with her inspecting her handguns, something she did way too often around you, you knew that you weren’t going to have to put up with anymore awkward questions or forced conversations.

Of course, given that you were trapped in a glorified apartment building where you were allowed in four rooms (and only two of them on a regular basis), that led pretty quickly to you being bored. So, even though you couldn’t convince yourself that you missed Clint, you found yourself out in the living room, watching Natasha channel surf, desperate for any form of entertainment.

After the thirteenth change in five minutes, you couldn’t help but wonder what exactly she was looking for. When you brought that up, you got a cold glare and a raised eyebrow. You were content to leave it there… for another five channels or so. By then, you decided that you had a bone to pick with her after all, but suddenly it wasn’t about the television.

“So… what’s your deal? You’re pretty inconsistent,” you said quietly, gazing across the couch. Natasha didn’t bother to take her eyes off of the television, continuing to flick through as she responded with the dullest voice you could imagine.

“In what way?”

“You’ve been like… eight different people since you first met me,” you said, glancing over at the television. She flipped through personalities, like… well, like channels. “First you broke in and beat the shit out of me, then you sang to me, then you tried to strong-arm me with Fury, and then you were really bizarrely friendly, and since then if you haven’t been sarcastic it feels like you just wished I’d shut up and leave you alone.”

“What makes you say that?”

“The tone and lack of real responses are definitely part of it,” you muttered, leaning on the arm rest. Natasha paused in her button clicking just long enough to give a sigh, then she turned off the television altogether and cocked her head at you sideways.

“Alright, you’ve got five minutes before Game of Thrones. If you have a point, now’s the time to make it.”

“Well, first o- you watch Game of Thrones?” Natasha quirked an eyebrow, and you could almost feel her fighting the urge to roll her eyes.

“Was that one of your points, or just wasted time?” She asked, stirring whatever it was she was drinking.

“Sorry, anyway, why the sudden… you know, mood swings? Are you judging me, or did I do something to make you feel anger, concern, pity, anger, and disinterest? …In that order?”

“_Everyone_ is always judging _everyone_,” Natasha pointed out, nodding along with her point.

“Alright, what about the rest?”

“Well, the first time we met, you attacked me and put members of my S.H.I.E.L.D. team in the medbay. Anger might be expected.”

“You weren’t angry when it happened, though,” you interjected. “You pitied me – I couldn’t see, but I’m guessing all of you had guns, but instead of shooting the guy that just attacked, you pinned me to the ground and sang to me.”

“I was just following orders. Take out HYDRA, gather intelligence. You were intelligence.”

“You could’ve just said intelligent, given me the compliment,” you said, sighing. “What about the interrogation? I thought it was supposed to be good-cop bad-cop, but then you threatened me before you left, and ever since then you’ve acted like you couldn’t care if I lived or died.”

“Who said I was acting?” She asked.

“There you go again, being deliberately antagonistic. I can’t tell if you want to be frenemies, if you want me to like you but have a healthy fear, or if you just want me to be so confused and off-put by the rapid changes that I leave you alone, but it’s really driving me crazy.”

Natasha was silent for a long time. She stared into your eyes with one of those looks, the kind that you couldn’t quite read but spoke deeply, as if even her soul could speak Russian.

“Not my problem,” she eventually said, turning back to the television. There was something there, something you hadn’t seen in her before, but you couldn’t tell quite what it was.

You doubted you would ever understand anything about her, really.


	9. Need to Know-it-All

“Seriously…” you mumbled as the nurse continued to siphon more of your blood off, “don’t you think this is a bit of overkill?”

“Your body can handle at least twice this much,” Fury said, rather unconvincingly. But maybe that was the blood loss talking. No, wait, it was Fury talking, not your blood. Loss. Lost?

“But what kind of tests are you running? Shouldn’t, like, a few drops-“

“That’s enough questions,” Fury said calmly, a little too calmly. A little too little too, if you knew what you meant. Did you?

“I just, I- what about one more?” You asked, trying hard not to fall off of your chair.

“I thought I said-“

“What’s up with Natasha?” You burst out, ignoring Fury. You hadn’t given many fucks about his opinions lately, and the lack of blood was not helping that. “She’s like… really hard to get a read on.”

“I’m sure that’s how she likes it.”

“Oh, come on, quit being such hardasses, after everything I’ve just given you it’s the least you could do. I don’t want her life story, and I don’t want anything secret, I just want to know why she seems to hate me.”

“She doesn’t hate you,” Fury said after a moment, “she probably doesn’t hate anyone. Anyone alive anyway. Hate is beneath her; at worst, she’s indifferent. Hate means you know her well enough to affect her.”

“Look, if I’m indifferent, I’m the most indifferent person she has,” you said, still unsure if your words made any sense to anyone other than yourself, “and that’s not okay. Even you are starting to warm up to me. No, no, no, don’t deny it, look-“

You tried not to fall over as you pointed at Fury with one hand, leveraging the table with the other. The nurse had already left, you realized, but you were too busy focusing on Natasha to imagine what kind of strange test she was running your blood to.

“-you know how much I want to help you guys, even if sometimes I’m scared. But she treats me like I’m gonna stab her in the back the second she lets her guard down.”

“You did throw a gun at her.”

“Instead of firing,” you added, wagging your finger to chastise Fury. “I didn’t know they were blanks, and I was desperate - I could’ve shot at her too, but I didn’t… as you were happy to point out, at the time, and that was really friendly of you. I mean Barton was lounging around in the vents so I kinda knew it was a test anyway, but seriously, you're like the best-worst test-giver ever.”

“You’re delirious,” Fury said, scoffing and backing away just in time as you tried to grab onto his leather coat. “You need rest. Go sleep it off.”

“Not until you answer me - why won’t Natasha open up to me, even a little? You just seem like a hardass in general, but Barton has been feeding me his life story. I can only just barely tell what she's thinking at any point in time, and I have to really work to do that.”

Fury stood by the door, patched eye somehow seeming to weigh your worth as a living creature.

“It’s just not a part of who she is. Her past is her own, no one else’s. It’s not an easy burden to bear, and that’s something she’s had to come to terms with. If you want to know anything else about her, you’d better ask her yourself. Unlike you, I don’t have a death wish.”

“You’re her boss. You know everything about her, classified and otherwise.”

Your vision seemed to sharpen. The delirium that had been surrounding you cleared - not for long, but for long enough to meet Fury’s gaze with an intensity you didn’t know you had.

“I don’t care about being her friend, or learning her deepest secrets. I just want to know what I need to do in order to not get a knife in my back. Clint said that everyone who works for SHIELD has their reasons, has a past that led them here, and it didn’t exactly sound like he meant that in a good way. What’s hers? Enough to not push the wrong buttons. That’s all I want to know.”

Fury gave a long pause. He didn’t sigh, he didn’t groan, he didn’t curse or make any real gesture to show that he was even acknowledging your words. If he had been a bit more solid he might have been a statue altogether, but he wasn’t, and eventually he broke his silence.

“Agent Romanov’s past is public record by now. It’s something she’s not proud of, but it’s something she made available for the sake of protecting the world. Still not something she’s gonna tell you much about, even if you can turn it up with a Google search.”

“You won’t let me use a computer, sooo…” you complained, leaning back in your chair, trying not to let the world spin around you.

Fury gave a sigh, standing up from his chair and heading toward the doorway. You tried to lean forward to stop him but found that you were so dizzy you almost fell out of your chair trying to rotate your head. Before he left, though, he turned his head and gave you a look that seemed almost sad, a first from the generally abrasive man.

“Think about your past. What you’re afraid it might be, what the worst case scenario is.”

You thought immediately of how similar his words were to Clint’s, but you didn't get the chance to make the comparison before he continued.

“Whatever you’re afraid of, that’s what Agent Romanov has to live with. You have plausible deniability, you can make your own past up until someone proves otherwise. She still has her memories. She still has to live with everything she’s done.”

With that Nick stepped through the door, storming away down the hall. You listened until even your keen ears couldn’t pick up his footsteps anymore, then gave a long sigh.

“I don’t think I can get out of this chair right now.”


	10. Chapter 10

You strolled into the living room with an ice pack clutched over your head, the fourth one of the day. Despite the additional cooperation you’d been giving him, Fury seemed determined to abuse it to the point of no return. In exchange for him providing you with more information about your own condition as well as the people around you, you had given Fury permission to draw more blood and do more tests. A part of you wondered if there was any point to agreeing, sure he would just drug you and take it anyway, but he had seemed receptive to your efforts so you hoped that even he had a line he wouldn’t cross.

Probably a foolish hope, but hope was all you had these days. Hope and a hell of a blood-loss induced headache.

“Hey, all done with Mr. Poke’n’prod?” Clint asked as you strolled in.

“You’ve got good ears,” you muttered, noting that you’d barely walked into the room and he wasn’t even looking your way.

“Caught your reflection, actually,” Clint said, never looking away from the TV. “My hearing’s actually pretty crap, I’m legally deaf, didn’t put the hearing aids in today either. They’re kind of a pain.”

“Wait, then how are you-“

“_Legally_ deaf. Also, I’m reading your lips.”

“Reading my-“ You paused, even though Clint didn’t interrupt you this time, gazing off into the television in front of you. Clint was watching some old western, and it was so bright and flashy with the action scene going on that you could barely even see Clint in the glassy reflection of the screen, much less make out enough detail to accurately read his lips. And that was with your vision, which Fury had already said was incredibly accurate and Clint seemed to think was better than his own… apparently only at reading lines of text on white paper, though.

“What the hell do you do for SHIELD?”

“Sharpshooter,” Clint said casually as you sat down across from him on the couch.

“Oh really? Like how good a- FUCK!”

You winced and grabbed at your forehead, already sore as hell and now in even more pain. Without hesitation - without even really looking your way - Clint had flicked a rubber band into your forehead, dead center. It didn’t even hit your eyes when it connected, bouncing off and landing on the floor ahead of you.

“That good.”

“Look, haven’t I had it rough enough?”

“Hey, I tried being friendly, you barely drank anything.”

“I had ten cups!”

“Barely. Anything,” he repeated, shrugging. There was something off about him but you were finding it difficult to tell what. Clint was obviously less friendly, and almost seemed annoyed at you, but you couldn’t imagine what would’ve caused it, considering you hadn’t spoken to him since the last time he was in charge of your babysitting, and he’d seemed pretty friendly then. Maybe he was just having a bad day?

“Look, I’ll get smashed with you next time, for now I feel more like the morning after… Fury has been running me ragged. Blood tests, urine tests, tissue samples… pretty sure he’d take a sample of _all_ my bodily fluids if I let him.”

“Gross,” Clint noted, “but you might not be wrong. Reproductive capabilities regarding whatever they did to you and all that. Wouldn’t want your children to grow four extra arms and start punching gods in the face.”

“You play too many video games,” you replied, chuckling - although you stopped when the throbbing in your head intensified.

“Life is a video game when you work for SHIELD,” Clint said. You weren’t totally sure whether he meant that in a good way or not.

“Speaking of SHIELD… Fury said something about offering me a position when all this was said and done, way back when this all started. Assuming I don’t find out anything about my past I really wouldn’t mind having a fallback plan. Not sure how easy it would be to adapt anyway, even if SHIELD gave me an identity to go on since I don’t have one of my own. What do you think my chances are?”

“Considering how you got here? Not gonna lie, ‘Outlook not so good’.”

“It’s no more satisfying coming from a human than a magic 8-ball,” you sighed, shaking your head. “What about Natasha? I heard that she had a pretty rough past too.”

“Who told you that?”

The words were spoken as calmly as anything else, but you noticed Clint’s neck tensing up slightly, something that had never happened before in such a way, except occasionally during your very first meetings. Back when he thought you were a hostile enemy soldier.

“I just… you said everyone from SHIELD has a past, something that brought them here,” you mumbled, a little put off by his mood change, even if he was trying to hide it. “I asked Fury about Natasha since she’s been so cold to me lately, but he wouldn’t say anything. All he said was that whatever I was afraid of my past being, she has to live with hers. He also said it’s all public record.”

“It is. And that’s not encouragement; you’re still banned from internet access ‘til Fury says otherwise.”

You gave a huff and turned toward the television, considering your next words carefully.

“I just… I just wanted to try to understand you guys, I guess. You seem pretty nice, overall - you haven’t been mean to me for no reason, anyway. You don't beat me, you don't berate me unless I’m being a smartass, and even if Natasha seems kind of moody, you're pretty consistent with being open and not actively punishing me for breathing. I tried to escape and you still treated me like a… maybe not a friend, but someone you didn’t actively hate.”

“Pretty low bar. You really are down, aren’t you?”

“Fury’s consistent too,” you said, ignoring Clint’s statement of the obvious. “Consistently angry, stubborn, and pretty much capable of ignoring anything I say if he really wants to. But I can handle that. Natasha, she… well, the first time I met her, she sang to me. The second time I met her she was like, I dunno, ‘good cop’? She tried to convince me to help, but unlike Fury didn’t seem to hate me or want to put a bullet in me. Hell, she helped me get into the fridge and find a midnight snack that wouldn’t get me shot. Even seemed to sympathize with-“

“Wait a minute, are you the one who stole my snack cakes?” Clint pointed a finger at you accusingly, an oddly serious tone entering his voice. “Because I will _cut_ you.”

“Jesus, no, she told me taking one of those was like declaring war,” you sighed. “That’s not my point. Ever since then she’s basically been stonewalling me, barely talks. Last time I tried talking to her she acted like she didn’t care if I lived or died. I’m not trying to learn her life story, I just want to know what I did and what I can do to make it better. You told me everyone has a reason for joining SHIELD - she seems to take this a lot more seriously than anyone else. What’s her reason?”

Clint was silent for a long time. It was almost impossible to tell what he was thinking as his eyes nearly glazed over while he watched the screen. After a few minutes he finally looked at you sideways, eyes narrowing ever so slightly.

“Natasha… she’s got her own set of issues. Unlike you, she can’t forget her past.”

“Yeah… Fury said something like that.”

“But did he say she might be jealous?”

“Jealous? Jealous of an amnesiac under permanent house arrest?” You laughed at the idea, but Clint - for once - didn’t seem to find anything funny about the situation.

“Think about it. She’s got a past that bothers her, something bad. It’s not my place to tell you, but when you get out of here, or get five seconds to Google, it won’t be hard to find out. Still, just imagine something really, really fucked up. Imagine you spent the last few years of your life trying to fix it, trying to make up for your past. Now imagine along comes some lab rat without a single memory, no idea where they were from, who they were, or what they’ve done. You could’ve burned an orphanage to the ground and tortured every single kid in it to death the day before we found you, and you’d never lose a wink of sleep over it.”

“Jesus Christ,” you whispered, “and you-“

“Even if she thinks you might’ve done something worse, even if you did, you don’t know about it. Never have to live with it the way she has. As much grief as it’s causing you, tell me for one second you wouldn’t think about forgetting again if your memories came back and they were something like that.”

“I…”

You went silent. You didn’t know what to say to that - you’d never even considered it before. Clint tipped his glass toward you and stared at the screen again, his voice back to its level, monotone ways.

“Don’t think, drink. It’s easier that way.”

“…Starting to think you might have a point,” you whispered as you reached for a glass yourself.


	11. Clashing Ideology

“We need to talk.”

“Funny, I thought that was my line,” Natasha said as you sat down opposite her, immediately resuming her breakfast. As soon as you’d noticed that it was her in charge of babysitting you - and it was easy to tell, because Clint always tried to scare you when you stepped out of the room in the morning - you were determined to get a word in with her.

“That's why we need to talk. I'm tired of being on the receiving end of all this, and I want some answers," you said, pointing at Natasha. She didn't bother to look away from her bowl as she spoke between bites.

"What makes you think you'll get them?"

You already felt your annoyance starting to rise up. Perhaps the confinement had gotten to you, perhaps it was just her attitude slowly wearing away at your patience, but you were tired of both Natasha's inconsistency and her callous, almost intentionally frustrating attitude. You felt like despite speaking with her on multiple occasions for what felt like weeks now (although you'd lost track of the days a while back), you didn't have any idea who she really is.

"Easy, I think you're going to be too pissed off to not say what you're really thinking."

"Now that's a new approach," Natasha said. You saw a smile from her, and it once again bothered you how casually she treated you sometimes. Not that you minded being treated as something other than a prisoner, but more the fact that she didn't seem to give a rat's ass about your well-being or what you thought of her. She simultaneously gave the impression of not thinking she'd have to think about you or ever deal with you again after tomorrow, and of being so in control of you that you'd never escape her grasp. It was a maddening combination that fueled your growing disregard for her opinion of you, and your desire to see her lose control for even just a second. To break that façade of disinterest.

"So how many children did you kill?"

Nothing happened. Honestly, you'd been expecting more of a reaction, even from someone as… wait, no, you weren't completely off the mark. There was something there when your question settled, and it was something spine-chilling. Something so deadly you felt your veins turn to ice in the silence.

It took a moment to set in, which was why you hadn't noticed it immediately. But the second her eyes shifted to you, it was as if time itself slowed down. She didn't look any differently than normal - at least, not at first. Her eyes flickered, so fast and so mildly you weren't sure you saw it at all, then a layer of ice seemed to settle across the room, carried through the air. It must have been in your imagination - there was no way the room could have literally gotten colder simply by you pissing her off, but the goosebumps and shivers along your extremities were clearly visible, matching the cold fear gripping your heart and blood vessels.

"Seems like a specific question. Did you smuggle in a mob movie when Barton was drunk, or was this inspired by something else?"

Her voice was even. Her face was level with every other interaction you'd had with her when she was in these neutral moods, but the threat was clear. Either you or whatever had given you that idea was in danger. You didn't so much read it in her as sense it in every fiber of your being; somehow, in spite of never pinpointing any specific danger, you felt ready to flee that room and never return.

"Just a theory," you responded, doing your absolute best to remain calm despite all of your instincts screaming out for you to fly away. "Clint and Fury wouldn't give me any information about what you're like, even when I practically begged for it. All they would tell me was that whatever I thought I might have done in a past life, whatever I imagined was the worst case scenario… yours was worse. And that you *did* remember it."

"So, as one of three people with the keys to your freedom, and someone whose past is so dark you assume they've slit a child's throat without hesitating, you thought that the best way you could get me to open up would be to walk in this room and taunt me about the things I've done? Interesting strategy."

"Well, you don't really seem responsive to ordinary measures," you responded, unable to come up with a wittier retort. "To be honest, after… how long has it been?"

"Three weeks, four days, seventeen hours… and counting," Natasha rattled off without hesitation, almost breaking the tension, save for the fact that she was actively counting how long she'd had to spend in your presence. Her control over the situation, her active knowledge of everything that had happened, only added to her power over you.

"Well, after that long you're the only one who hasn't gotten any friendlier."

"I haven't gotten any less friendly either. Yet."

"Yes, you fucking have!"

It was a desperate move. She seemed to sense it immediately, her demeanor changing entirely as she sidled the armrest of the couch and raised an eyebrow at you. It was as if your desire to bring out her inner self was nothing more than a chess game; whatever threat you had sensed slowly faded and her calm, impassive mask returned to cover her inner emotions. You eyed her cautiously. Your fear was genuine - you'd sensed something in her, you were sure of it. All the same, she was playing emotions like a game of strategy and skill. Yours and hers, in equal measure. If that was the way she wanted it…

"Okay, not within the past couple days, I'll admit." You thought about how long you'd been there, thought about guessing how long ago based on the timeline she had just given you, but realized that only strengthened her position. Not only were you going to be inaccurate, but you had no idea if the three weeks she'd just rattled off was even accurate. "Still, you were a lot more sympathetic before I started asking the real questions."

"Questions I can't or won't answer. You expect me to show pity instead? I've had to tell people a lot worse than that they may never know their own name; you giving me puppy dog eyes and telling me how much you want to leave this place isn't going to break me."

"No. I think that's the last thing I expect. You've never looked at me like you pity me… Clint has. Fury has, I think, though he's kind of hard to read with the one eye thing. You've never shown me much of anything. But I think I might have struck a chord with you on this one, about your past and the things you've done."

"And you think that's won you something?"

The words were even. The tone was, too. There was little to be assumed from them, but all the same, as she spoke of winning… you felt as if you had very much just lost something.

"No," you half-mumbled, trying to not seem as defeated as you felt. "I don't think there's any way to win this. I just wanted to understand you a little better."

"Good luck with that," Natasha said coldly. Then she was flipping through the channels again, her eyes locked on the screen. There was nothing in her eyes for you to read, nothing that showed you had ever bothered her to begin with. The mixture of determination and crushing defeat you felt threatened to tear you apart at the very seams.

Not unlike Natasha herself.

"It's funny, you know…" you trailed off, trying to regain any manner of leverage in the conversation. None was apparent, Natasha now ignoring you entirely as she traipsed her way haphazardly through the horrors of daytime television. You paused for a long while, expecting her to at least acknowledge the fact that you were still there. When she didn't, you started to grow angry. Spiteful. Filled with a wrath that had no basis in Natasha herself, but still erupted entirely focused on her.

"You know, it's pretty fucking funny that as the prisoner, the one trapped here against their will, I feel less alone than you do."

You didn't wait for a response, or even check for the briefest of reactions. You were already turned away by the time you finished, marching off toward your room. You had a brief moment where you wondered if she might just shoot you and finally be done with your nonsense, but nothing like that ever happened. Instead you were left to stomp away childishly, slamming the door to your room and sealing yourself away from what you had unleashed.


	12. Executive Privilege

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I apologize to my readers, but I made a HUUUUUGE error when I was posting these chapters! I posted chapter 14 instead of chapter 12 because I thought I was caught up with my written chapters! The original chapter I posted as #12 is titled "Change of Meanery", and is now Chapter #14. I'm so sorry for the inconvenience, but to anyone uncertain of where they were, PLEASE start over from the end of Chapter 11 and move forward! I'm posting all these chapters at once so I don't make the same mistake.
> 
> If you're reading this story from scratch after 5/15/2020, the error has already been fixed. Pay no mind, and I hope you enjoy! I apologize for any confusion I've caused to the rest of you, *sincerely*.

"What, is that it? You're not even going to taunt me? Tell me about all the tests you're gonna run? C'mon Fury, you barely even took anything this time."

Your voice came out tauntingly, cocky, even headstrong to a faulty degree. That was exactly what you were going for… and it was exactly the opposite of what you felt at the moment. It had been only two days since you confronted Natasha over her unknown past, since you had vainly attempted to get a proper read on the woman who acted as one of your two primary caretakers. She had passed her time as your guardian in silence, avoiding any significant answers to the many questions you posed to her. Clint's turn was coming up tomorrow, and you'd thought it would be a bit of a relief.

That was before Fury marched into take his usual samples of blood, with none of his normal bluster. Usually the one-eyed agent rapidly altered between taunting and threatening you. It was actually kind of amazing how much time he spent talking, considering how few of your questions he actually answered. But this time was very different from those other visits. Fury didn't say a single thing to you, and he barely bothered to look you in the eye as the nurses did their duties. You were so thrown off that you didn't manage to taunt him until they were pulling the needle free, cleaning up and preparing to leave.

"We have what we need. I don't see any reason to stick around."

"Seriously, what is going on with you today? You talked more to me when you thought I was a Hydra spy!"

"I still think you are," Fury responded, ushering the nurses out of the room and following quickly behind them. "Quit trying to antagonize me before it _works_. Barton is waiting for you back at the room."

With an aggravated sigh, you stood from your chair, but just as you were about to reach the doorway, Fury slammed it behind him as he left. The door came so close when it slammed that a wall of air burst into your face, and the door was very lightly touching the tip of your nose.

"Holy shit," you mumbled, "did I piss all of them off at once?"

\--------

"Agh, fuck, that was rhetorical!" You grunted at the impact of the wall into your chest, with Clint's arms pinning you against it once you were settled. One hand locked both of your arms there while the other hand patted down your sides, legs, and feet, all the way down to actually shaking at the hem of your shirt.

"Stop struggling or this is just gonna take even longer," Clint ordered, though you realized at that point he wasn't even searching you. In fact, most of his little pat-down hadn't even been thorough - he just sort of forcefully slapped you a lot. You were pretty sure you were going to have some bruises later, actually.

"What the hell is with the security theater?" You half-shouted, twisting your head to look back at him. You were rewarded with a further twist of your arm by Clint, keeping you pressed firmly where you were and sending a shooting pain up your shoulder.

"New security protocol - Fury thinks someone might have smuggled some contraband into the base, so we're doing crackdowns on all civilians. Have to be sure you didn't bring anything in with you or smuggle any of the needles or other medical devices from the nurses that could be used as a weapon."

"Bring things in? From _where_?! I'm the only civilian _in_ this base that I know of, and I don’t get to leave!"

"Yeah, funny how that works," Clint grunted, giving your arm one last twist before he stepped away. You immediately started wincing as you gently rotated your shoulder, making sure it wasn't actually damaged in any major way. It had felt like he was about to pull it clean out of its socket.

"What the hell is really going on? Natasha's been giving me the silent treatment, but I deserve that - I wasn't expecting it from Fury, and I really wasn't expecting you to go full TMA on me when I got back."

"It's TSA, but I'm glad you at least tried to learn from our TV time together," Clint replied. Just the trace of a smile started to cross his face, but then it was wiped away. "Too bad the cable's out. You're stuck in your room for the time being, so find some way to entertain yourself."

"Wha- how? Natasha was literally watching it when I left," you responded, then realized it was pointless to argue on the cable front. "Seriously, I get it, okay? I pissed Natasha off. You guys all seem like a pretty tightly knit group, but I didn't expect to get all of you riled up by trying to learn a little bit more about you all."

"Learning is all well and good. Asking questions is human nature, it's a way of life. What you did? That’s sticking in the knife, twisting, and seeing what leaks out. You don't _do_ that."

You paused briefly, caught off guard by the venom in the usually friendly voice, but your indignation overpowered your caution. "Don't what, ask mean questions? Fuck's sake, I should be prison shanking the lot of you and trying to escape. In fact I feel the need to keep repeating that no matter how you phrase it, _I am your **prisoner!**_"

"You want another pat down? Because that's how you get another pat down. and I won't be gentle this time."

"I, no, I just- fuck it, you know what? I'm done with this. I've been cooperative - extremely so I'd say, considering the circumstances. No matter how much blood I give, how many questions I answer, or how nice I am to all of you, every day starts and ends the same. I wake up in a cell, I go to bed in a cell. I never learn anything knew about who I am or what was done to me… I just sit and wait to die, because at this point I've given up on freedom. So tell Natasha I'm sorry I tried to know a little bit more about why she hates me, why she's so ashamed of her past. Then tell Fury I'm done with his bullshit tests. I'm gonna go sit in my cell."

You could hear Clint speaking, but tuned him out mentally. You charged forward until you were slamming the door to your room behind you, throwing yourself onto the bed. You felt a bit like a petulant child, but given that your first attempt had backfired so spectacularly, that felt rather appropriate at the moment. Mostly because you were so isolated and restricted you had no options to express your anger _except_ to sulk in your room.

Fortunately, despite Clint's threats, he never followed you. There was some noise from outside the room that you could hear - despite Fury's best attempts to reinforce and soundproof the door, you could still hear things he assured you would be impossible for a human. But all that it amounted to your untrained ears were a few muffled footsteps and some uncertain words that you couldn't fully register. Whatever they were, they sounded rather annoyed, but you did your best to tune them out.

When you were certain at last that neither Clint nor Fury were about to storm your room, you hesitantly reached to the wall-facing side of your mattress. There, through a slit you'd formed out of boredom through days on days of slowly slicing away at it with bare fingernails, you retrieved your most prized possession. A diary of sorts, though it was mostly comprised of torn bits of scrap paper in random order, retrieved haphazardly from the trash when you thought nobody was paying attention to you. Though your marker was stolen, you'd made due with a partially spent pen refill, also stolen from the garbage. While writing on the wall with it was out of the question, after much hesitance and fiddling, you were able to make the refill work... after dislodging the chemical block for the ink and filling it with just a small amount of blood.

It was a bit revolting, but it worked well enough, after you got the ballpoint tip to function properly with its new fuel. Thankfully after slicing your finger open the first time, re-opening the wound became easy in comparison. So you toiled away at the space you had left on your latest scavenge, ranting fury and fire at the base you were in.

Somehow, it seemed like all of your entries started with rage. Perhaps it was due to your efforts to conserve paper - the few times you felt like truly writing, you were always upset with something that had gone wrong that day. The time you tried to escape, the time you pissed off Fury in the medical room, the time you tried to get to know Natasha…

Even now though, trying to summon up your hatred of your captors, something held you back. Not that you minded tearing them apart; it was your own private journal, of course. But in spite of your best efforts, you could never quite find it in you to hate the people around you. This was certainly the closest you had come, feeling your insides rumble and rage at the idea that antagonizing one person had more or less doomed your existence here. But even then… they didn't seem truly evil. Nothing ever struck you as bad or horrifying about the things they did, even when they seemed out of the ordinary. Despite the fact you had no memories of people or places or events outside of the few rooms you'd experienced since awakening, these people felt genuine on a level you could never quite shake. 

Reliable? Not particularly. Trustworthy? **_Hell no_**. Not a single fucking chance. But evil…? No, not evil. Just overly cautious, and perhaps a little insensitive toward basic human rights, not that those were admirable traits themselves. Still, it gave you a hesitance. The second you began to think of violent escape, righteous punishment, or other forms of revenge… you could never bear to put them down on paper. In the same way that you had sensed such danger in Natasha when you questioned her on her past, you felt deep within yourself that none of these people were inherently bad.

That feeling burned within you as you did your best to unload your rage and anger onto the scrap of a grocery list you'd retrieved from a trash can. Somehow, it never made you feel any better.


	13. Tone Deaf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I apologize to my readers, but I made a HUUUUUGE error when I was posting these chapters! I posted chapter 14 instead of chapter 12 because I thought I was caught up with my written chapters! The original chapter I posted as #12 is titled "Change of Meanery", and is now Chapter #14. I'm so sorry for the inconvenience, but to anyone uncertain of where they were, PLEASE start over from the end of Chapter 11 and move forward! I'm posting all these chapters at once so I don't make the same mistake.
> 
> If you're reading this story from scratch after 5/15/2020, the error has already been fixed. Pay no mind, and I hope you enjoy! I apologize for any confusion I've caused to the rest of you, *sincerely*.

The next few days passed with little notice from you or your guardians. Fury never requested any further tests, and Clint barely addressed you except to say goodbye on the final day of his rotation. You took the unspoken warning with hesitation - the meaning was clear. He was ending this part of his rotation as your watcher, and Natasha would return with whatever fury still burned within her. You could never quite be sure of how much that was…

Honestly, if Barton hadn't notified you himself, you might not have even noticed the transition. Natasha made a point of avoiding you as much as possible. You only encountered her a half-dozen times as you scoured the kitchen for meals, and every time her intense gazes and silent brooding intimidated you into retreating to your room. You never found the will or desire to break the silence that hung between you... until you, at _very_ great length, started to piece together what you knew of the woman.

Reading her was nearly impossible; Fury and Barton had both indicated that they had a hard time knowing what she was thinking, and you knew less about her than they did. She had a hard exterior and an apparent disdain for you, but seemed to have a softer side… sometimes. One of them had to be fake, didn't they? Probably, but she was too good of an actress for you to figure out which one. But what if both were real? What if you'd done something to really piss her off? Not as badly as you had now, of course, but bad enough to make her stop acting so friendly.

You tried to think back to the last nice thing that she had done for you… besides the rescue, and the interrogations while you were still chained up where she often played "nice cop". She had helped you out with the refrigerator dilemma. She had been polite and conversational for a while after that too during your days under her care. Honestly, she hadn't even gotten mad after you tried to escape and threw a gun at her - if anything, she seemed to get a lot more comfortable around you when you were actually talking, which was really weird. Who the hell related more with a person after they were assaulted?

It was something after that. One of your conversations, maybe? It seemed the most likely explanation, but you didn't talk about much. Your condition, the base, Clint and Fury… your knowledge of topics was extremely limited, since your entire life and memory consisted of less than a dozen rooms, and nothing of the outside. If it wasn't for the constant television in the living room, you weren't even sure that you'd be certain of the color of the sky. It was a knowledge you had… but not a memory. Perhaps something you'd said to someone else, but you couldn't figure out any one thing. So you simply addressed the worst of the elephants in the room. Regardless, the fight was the only incident you could remember where Natasha got really upset with you, and she had gotten cold a long time before that...

"Hey, I uh- you busy?"

"Nope… just sitting here pretending to read," Natasha said, not glancing away from her pages for more than an instant in spite of calling out her fake reading.

"Well, hold your page, this won't take long."

"Ooh, I like where this is going," Natasha said, half a smile cracking across her face. "Last time we had a conversation like this, I heard Barton nearly twisted your shoulder out of place."

"You look like you enjoyed that story _way_ too much," you grumbled. "Anyway, I just wanted to apologize. I'm… getting pretty cooped up in here, and I sort of took it out on you." Not that she didn't deserve it, but you left that part out…

"Well, well. I honestly thought you were just going to sulk in your room until Barton came back. Wasn't really expecting an honest apology. Why the sudden change in attitude?"

"Nothing I've ever said has bothered you enough to upset the others. I wanted to press a few buttons, see if I could learn something about you or get you to show real emotion, but… if it hurt you enough that they noticed something or you actually shared something, I must have really gotten to you."

"I don't let people get to me," Natasha said easily, but her finger strayed as she flipped over the page. It missed the corner - something the precise and perfect Natasha never did. You focused on her finger as it moved, your eyesight not missing the subtle double-flick. You could see every ridge of her thumbprint even from this distance… you had not missed the fact that over the past few weeks your eyes had gotten stronger, not weaker. Fury already knew your eyesight was good, and while you'd been honest with your capabilities when he originally tested you, you'd found it prudent to leave out just how much stronger they had gotten. 

"Of course not… you'd have to let them know you, if they wanted to get under your skin."

"See? I said it before, you're a pretty quick learner. Aside from the whole antagonizing your captors thing; you keep wanting to repeat that mistake."

"Yeah… anyway, I'm sorry for that. Again. And I'm sorry for what I said to you before that."

"Before that? I don't remember you trying that trick twice, and I'm pretty sure your amnesia isn't contagious," Natasha said, shrugging.

"No I don't- I don't _think_ it was like that, I guess maybe it came off that way. I just… whatever I said to you that made you stop liking me- okay, like is a strong word. Whatever made you stop _tolerating_ me. Like when I first got here, and you actually seemed like you wanted to get me freed. When I was at the refrigerator and you took the time to explain things to me, and make me feel a little better. When you used to actually share things about SHIELD, and about Clint and Fury too. Now all I get is sarcasm. I can tell I upset you, I just don't know how… because I don't even know enough about you to figure it out."

"You didn't upset me. I'm just getting as tired of this place as you are. Tensions are high and tempers are short, you know how it goes."

"Oh please," you chuckled, "If I hadn't seen the look on your face when I charged in here and started ranting about your past, I wouldn't even know that you _had_ a temper. Something I did, or something someone else did, changed the way that you act around me. Whatever it was, whatever I did… I don't need to know what it was. That's between you and the woman in the mirror. I'm officially giving up on prying on your life. But just because I didn't do it intentionally… doesn't mean I don't regret it. So I'm sorry."

Natasha cast her eyes over to you slowly, as if she were sizing you up, although her gaze focused entirely on your face. There was that look in them again… the one you couldn't put a real emotion to, but had seen many times since your first arrival. The one that made her feel dangerous. After a moment she gave a soft shrug, then a surprisingly fake-sounding chuckle escaped her lips.

"Not a bad attempt at kissing ass, by any means. It won't work, but feel free to keep it up. I appreciate the attention."

"Yeah… anyway, I've said my bit. I'll head back to my room now."

She didn't stop you as you trawled away, but for the first time in a while, you didn't feel as if you were being chased back to your den. Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but as your door closed, you would have sworn you heard just the faintest whispers of a sigh.


	14. Change of Meanery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I apologize to my readers, but I made a HUUUUUGE error when I was posting these chapters! I posted chapter 14 instead of chapter 12 because I thought I was caught up with my written chapters! The original chapter I posted as #12 is titled "Change of Meanery", and is now Chapter #14. I'm so sorry for the inconvenience, but to anyone uncertain of where they were, PLEASE start over from the end of Chapter 11 and move forward! I'm posting all these chapters at once so I don't make the same mistake.
> 
> If you're reading this story from scratch after 5/15/2020, the error has already been fixed. Pay no mind, and I hope you enjoy! I apologize for any confusion I've caused to the rest of you, *sincerely*.

_Most of the contents of the unofficial "junk drawer". Three weeks' worth of frozen dinners, untouched since several months ago. Several pieces of training room equipment, which since Fury doesn't trust me with free weights or anything I could easily hide, consisted mostly of difficult to assemble bits of various exercise equipment. Seven gallons of mayonnaise… largely unused. Purpose uncertain._

Your eyes struggled not to glaze over as they viewed the listing you had made. Unlike most of your diary entries, this was not of notable events or things you wanted to make sure you remembered later. This was all about inventory, so to speak. Ever since your apology to Natasha, things had settled into a bit of a rhythm. Few things disturbed that rhythm… with the rare exception of your occasional medical tests, though those were becoming fewer and farther between it seemed.

However all that had changed as of - by your count - three days ago. That was when things started to disappear. Slowly at first, so slowly you weren't entirely certain if they had been removed or if Clint had gone on some kind of rage-induced mayonnaise frenzy. When he didn't die of some massive coronary the next day, you became suspicious. You hadn't done anything to piss the team off since your little spat with Natasha, and even if you had, a huge portion of the things that had gone missing were of no use to you anyway. Fury was far more clever and effective with his punishments.

But what really bothered you was the fact that even when things like the gym equipment and frozen dinners started vanishing, things that were too obvious for you to really miss, they never mentioned any of it to you. You brought it up to Clint and he just said something about budget cuts. Natasha just said that everything there was technically SHIELD property, and that whatever Fury did with it was barely her business, much less yours. You two… still weren't on great terms. On the plus side, she was at least using sarcasm most of the time instead of outright ignoring you.

Still, this whole mess had made you start wondering what they could be planning. If they were shutting the facility down, that would make the most sense… but why wouldn't they tell you? You had been assuming that if the place was shutting down that it meant you were going free. What if they were moving you somewhere else? You couldn't think of anything to justify that off the top of your head, but if Fury had discovered something in one of his tests - something that he hadn't disclosed to you… well, you were growing more concerned by the day that perhaps they were finding somewhere more secure for you. Not that you had any real ideas on escaping this one, with every path toward what you assumed was the main entrance sealed by the high-level security doors Fury always arrived through.

After you considered that option, you couldn't help but to run through a dozen different ideas in your head. They ranged from moving to a more secure facility - or worse, a prison - all the way up the ideas Fury and his agents had been planting in your head since the beginning. Ideas like working for SHIELD, becoming one of their agents… every time Fury walked in on you in the training room, the few times you were allowed in there with supervision, he couldn't hide the surprise on his face at how well you were performing.

Still, you'd never even been asked on whether you wanted to or not. Not outright, anyway - and even if you had, your theoretical answer had changed so many times since you first awoke here that you weren't even sure where you stood at a given hour. So you were quite sure they weren't preparing for a theoretical answer - best case scenario you could imagine was that they were preparing to take you to the entrance of this place and offer you either freedom or to join them.

Every option seemed either depressing or highly unlikely. That was why, when you returned to your room one night to find Fury sitting in a chair against the far wall, your heart started to beat so loudly you were sure that he could hear it.

"I think it's time we had a talk."

"Should I be sitting for this?" You tried to size up Fury's reactions. He was easier to read than Natasha, but not by much.

"When we talk you usually end up standing and yelling anyway. Wouldn't do you much good to sit when you can never seem to keep your calm."

"I mean, there are two common denominators in these conversations. I wouldn't just go around assuming I'm the issue."

"Right now, you're _all_ of my issues," Fury said, sighing as he jerked his chin toward the door you were standing by. Tilting your head a little, you slowly closed the door, unsure of why he would want to keep this conversation private. Thinking back, you were pretty sure you could count the number of times you'd been alone in a room with Fury on one hand, and most of them you were half-delirious from blood loss.

"So what's so important you had to sneak into my room?" You fought the urge to glance to the hiding place of your makeshift diary, certain Fury had already searched the room again, and not wanting to encourage further examination.

"I know you've noticed the items disappearing around the base. You probably have a lot of ideas about why that is, but I'm here to tell you the truth."

"First time for everything. I take it since you aren't doing it with armed guards that you aren't about to execute me, or tell me I'm too dangerous and you're going to lock me away forever."

"Do you really think I need Agents Romanoff or Barton in here to deal with you? I could have you on the ground twitching with a flick of my finger."

"Oh please," you scoffed, "honestly? You might be able to take me in a one-on-one, especially with whatever you have hidden under that trench coat of yours. But if you didn't think I was dangerous and worth keeping secured, you wouldn't have me here. If you thought that one well-trained person with a few toys kept concealed was enough to lock me up, you wouldn't assign two of your - and I quote you on this one - 'best' agents to lock me down. So… what's the deal, Fury?"

The one-eyed menace across from you grew silent for a long moment. Long enough to let you think, long enough to make you wonder - had you crossed some unspoken boundary? Had your observations been too direct? Was he considering, even at that very moment, whether he should have you thrown in another cell, limbs chained to the wall, able to move no further than he commanded?

"Honestly I was considering dumping you in an alleyway, laced up with amphetamines, considering how ignorant you seem about everything going on. Hard to do any damage if you can't remember your own name, and I'm just starting to believe you on that part."

"Praise the lord," you moaned, only half-feigning exasperation, "it only took me however the hell long it has been since I got here. When we move locations can I at _least_ have a goddamn calendar?"

"What makes you think I'm not planning on moving you to an even *more* secure facility?" Fury asked, eyeing you with as much sarcasm as concern.

You didn't have a proper response. Truthfully, that had been one of your biggest concerns. After you'd awoken in what was apparently a Hydra base in chains, you'd awoken in a SHIELD base… in chains. Since you had first noticed the disappearing goods, part of you was sincerely worried that any time you ate or went to sleep you'd wake up half-drugged, chained to the walls again, once more unable to escape your fate.

"Seems like I finally found something that silenced that mouth of yours," Fury noted. "The only thing you need to know for now is that we're going to be leaving this place. But not any time soon… we still have to take a few precautions before we make this move. Can I trust you to stay safe and stay put when we make our move?"

"Depends on how deep the hole you're planning on dropping me into is," you spat.

"Do you know the difference between 'can't' and 'won't'?"

"Sure," you responded immediately, "I _can't_ talk my way out of here, but that _won't_ stop me from trying."

"Good. Then let me put it to you this way. I _can't_ trust you. Just like you can't trust me. Neither of us knows anything about the other. But you can't - or won't - tell me anything about you, so there's no mutual discussion to be had here. Either you're lying, or you're telling the most damned suspicious truth there is. But that doesn't mean I _won't_, one day."

"Is that… supposed to be comforting?"

"It's supposed to be honest, something you and I have had a lot of problems with," Fury admitted, rolling the one eye you could see. "This relationship is antagonistic in just about every aspect. It has to be. Think about how it started, and think about how every interaction we've had goes. If you were gonna give in to some kind of twisted Stockholm Syndrome you'd have done it by now. 

"The way I see it, we keep doing this until I learn something about you, or you admit something I can afford to believe. But whatever you think, you've spent enough nights on the couch with Clint and enough time talking to Natasha to know a bit more about SHIELD, about what we do. We're not the good guys. I don't think anyone that does what we do can be."

"See? Our relationship is already improving - we finally found some common ground."

"I'm regretting this conversation already," Fury said, actually taking on an unhappier tone. Subtle as it was, you straightened up slightly.

"Then why start it at all?" You asked, less petulant but still unsettled. "You just said that it's impossible for either of us to trust each other."

"In most circumstances, it would be. There's only one other possibility - the one where you've been telling the truth, and you don't actually remember anything. If that's the case, you can always take a leap of faith and trust us."

You were about to ask why you would ever do such a thing, but Fury cut you off before you could.

"There's no reason why you would do that," he said simply. "Not a logical one, anyway. But you have two choices. If you're hiding what you remember from us, or if you don't remember anything but still want to hide, that means you think we're evil, corrupt, or just some kinda assholes. If that's the case, our relationship is going to keep swinging this way, and it doesn't matter what we're planning - you're going to fight us, we're going to fight back, and one side or the other is gonna win."

"…And what happens if I risk trusting you?" You said, almost a whisper.

"Then either you're wrong to trust us, and we're about to lock you away forever - which we aren't, assuming you _are_ telling the truth," Fury admitted, shrugging, "or you're right to trust us, and we have more reason to trust you."

"How do I know this isn't all some major psychological warfare trying to convince me not to fight back as you lock me away in some godforsaken hole forever, or just drag me out back and shoot me?" You asked spitefully.

"You don't," Fury responded coolly, "that's why it's called trust."

Leaving it at that Fury left the room, leaving you to contemplate your latest exchange… and wonder why he wanted, or needed, your trust. A man that powerful, a man that connected, a man who held your life by a string… what was he trying to gain by talking you into trusting him? Maybe he still thought you knew more than you were letting on.

Or maybe he was hoping you didn't.


	15. Chains of Fate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I apologize to my readers, but I made a HUUUUUGE error when I was posting these chapters! I posted chapter 14 instead of chapter 12 because I thought I was caught up with my written chapters! The original chapter I posted as #12 is titled "Change of Meanery", and is now Chapter #14. I'm so sorry for the inconvenience, but to anyone uncertain of where they were, PLEASE start over from the end of Chapter 11 and move forward! I'm posting all these chapters at once so I don't make the same mistake.
> 
> If you're reading this story from scratch after 5/15/2020, the error has already been fixed. Pay no mind, and I hope you enjoy! I apologize for any confusion I've caused to the rest of you, *sincerely*.

It was only a few days later that Fury came to talk to you again. After your last conversation with him, they had dropped all pretense of subtly removing objects from the building and opted to start outright carrying things away in the middle of the night, starting with the nonessential furniture. 

By the time Fury showed up the couch was replaced with some folding chairs, the TV had disappeared entirely, and you were frankly surprised on meeting him in the front room that the refrigerator was still there. All of the training equipment had been hauled out, as well. Honestly, you were pretty used to being bored; the hard part had been listening to Clint go through withdrawal.

Yet still somehow Fury made a reasonably subtle entrance, sidling in along the wall just as you came out to the living room to see who had been put in charge for the day. The same eyepatch and trench coat he always seemed to have freshly cleaned and ready, the same stern expression, the same stance that seemed somewhere between commanding officer and executioner... the only thing different were his arms. Clasped behind his back, certainly not an unfamiliar pose for him, you could see them shifting and twitching. Just a little. One of the small details you couldn't help but notice with your vision.

"Had any new thoughts on trust lately?"

"Look, I don't ask for much-"

"Bullshit," Fury said without missing a beat.

"-but could you at least wait until I've had my morning coffee?"

"Figured you could use a different kind of morning pick-up. Good news always brightens my mornings, but Agents Romanov and Barton don't seem to enjoy bringing it to me."

"Pardon me if I'm used to hearing you mention good news a little bit more sarcastically."

"Look there's a reason I don't come into this place in the mornings - I've got a lot of better things to do with my day than sit here and sass you, but you make it so damn easy. I brought you two pieces of good news. I'll let you pick which one you want first, but word of advice - take the painkiller. Makes the other one a lot better," Fury joked, finally pulling his hands out from behind his back. In them were two separate items, a needle in his left hand, and a strange device that looked something like a pair of plastic pliers in his right.

"Yeah, bullshit!" You half-shouted, taking a step back. Fury hadn't brought any nurses with him, hadn't even asked you what you wanted, and now he showed up with medical-grade implements? You were-

"Calm down, I can see those gears turning. You're gonna panic for about another ten seconds until you realize I didn't bring any nurses, but I also didn't bring Agents Romanov or Barton _with_ me to deal with you. That means I’m not planning on a fight. And believe me - I'm _always_ planning on a fight."

"Look I get the blood tests, but at least I can see there's nothing in *those* needles. What the fuck is _that_?"

"I just told you what's in here, but if you want me to emphasize a little more, it's _trust_," Fury said, quirking his one eye at you. "That's what I brought you today. A big ol' doctor's prescription for trust, and a note that says if it hurts in the mornin', that's just too damn bad."

"Alright, alright, the vague taunting isn't helping," you groaned, taking another step back and through the doorway, now halfway back into the hall. "Let's say I believe that it's a painkiller… that's *terrifying*, because what the hell are you going to do to me that is gonna hurt that bad? You gave me a *spinal tap* with no painkillers."

"We had to be sure there was no contamination. We don't know how your system reacts to *anything*. Agent Romanov had to talk me into giving you children's strength Tylenol after."

"She uh…" you paused, imagining the super-spy redhead actually sticking up for you. Shaking aside the irrelevant thought for a moment, you pointed your finger back at Fury. "Well, does that mean that this is gonna hurt worse, or that you like me more?"

"Neither, actually. Well, maybe it'll hurt a little more, but that's your problem. I'm offering it to you because this isn't a medical procedure, and we've run your blood through so many damn tests that if you were gonna have an allergic reaction to anything, it didn't come from this planet."

"Okay, so I get one day off from the testing. Fantastic."

"Actually," Fury said slowly, almost hesitantly, "I think you've earned yourself a break from all of that. A permanent one, mostly. Guys and girls down at the lab might get a few crazy ideas at some point, but for now… I think we've learned about everything we can from you."

That gave you pause. Fury didn't sound satisfied. You figured if he ever did learn something, he'd hold it from you, so you were never surprised that he didn't report much from his repeated blood draws. Honestly, you always assumed he had learned a lot and didn't feel like sharing. But his voice didn't sound like he was keeping secrets or lording some knowledge over you with that last comment… he sounded almost defeated.

"What exactly did you learn, if you don't mind me asking how my own body works?" You said slowly, for once trying very hard _not_ to sound antagonizing.

"What we have learned is that whatever was done to you messed with you on a sub-cellular level. Honestly, some of your cells are barely recognizable. You've still got a human genome... well, in some places. It's recognizable in long enough strands for comparison and we ran it against every database SHIELD could get its hands on, but no matches to any database in any nation we could use. Aside from that, your protein structures and the makeup of your cells seem to have been severely altered, most likely to enhance them. We're still working on figuring out the how and why they did what they did, but judging by the way you passed every eyesight and hearing test we threw at you with flying colors, it's done you some good."

"So is that why you've been taking so much blood? Trying to replicate whatever they did to me? Make some kind of super army?"

"You're not the first person to get enhanced by a little scientific advancement, we wouldn't keep you locked up for just that," Fury assured you, stepping over to the side and actually taking a seat on one of the stools left in the living room to replace the couch. "A big part of what we were doing was to try to figure out what made you so special. Why the treatment worked so well for you."

"Wait, just for me? There were other test subjects? I thought you didn't know what was done to me."

"We don't," Fury assured you, shaking his head and resting his elbows on his knees, eyes distant. He seemed to be pouring over memories you couldn't quite read, though he was careful to never actually take his eyes completely off of you. "But… you weren't the only one. How much do you remember of your extraction? How much do you _really_ remember."

Maybe Fury was just trying to get you to confess to some more memories than you'd let on, but you were too caught off guard to really think it over. Besides, there was nothing left you could tell him that you hadn't already shared.

"Honestly… nothing more than I've already let you know. I promise. Nothing but darkness for a minute or two before your agents entered, maybe less, it was hard to tell time. I think the sounds of gunfire are what woke me up. Then when the door opened it was so bright I couldn't even see more than some blurry outlines. I thought I was getting attacked, fought back, and then got pinned to the ground. I only stopped because Natasha started singing to me. It just… didn't seem like something someone trying to kill me would do."

"No memories of the hallways outside, no half-awake blurs being dragged through the base?" Fury asked, quirking an eye.

"No… why?"

"Because there were twenty-eight other cells in the same wing as yours," Fury said simply, shaking his head. "Every single one of them was almost identical to yours. One prisoner, usually well-restrained against the far wall. Only difference is that in every one of those cells, the person inside was dead. Some for a lot longer than the others. We found more than a few rotting corpses in that place, half of them prepped for disposal. The base was in a pretty open location, so our intel suggests they didn't have a good place to get rid of any of them before they were completely decomposed and chemically treated… but we found a lot of empty cells. No idea how long the experiment had been going for."

The information washed over you in waves. Fear, first, for what might have happened to you in that place. Then nausea, imagining first others and then your own self rotting away in a cell, your recurring nightmare since your imprisonment here. In your mind, corpses were dumped off a cliff's edge, rotted and eaten away by acids and chemicals you were too sick to imagine. Your hand shot to your mouth in an attempt to hold the bile that was rising, but you fought off your overwhelming discomfort just long enough to look Fury in the eyes and ask a few of the questions that were now ricocheting around your mind.

"Were they executed because they outlived their usefulness? Died of natural circumstances? Were they given the same treatment, or different? Why the _fuck_ did **_I_** live?!"

"Don't sound so ungrateful," Fury said quietly, his eyes growing more certain, more calm. He had that same cocksure swagger now that he normally did, and his feet tapped pleasantly against the stool he was sitting on. "You got a gift none of those others did."

"What gift was that?" You spat, your neck twitching so hard you heard it pop.

"You lived," Fury said simply, shaking his head. "We analyzed the bodies that we found, whether that was all of them or just what was left. Corpses don't last as long as a living body, but you don't have to be as careful with them. As best as we can tell they got a treatment - maybe the same one you got - and it didn't agree with them. Whatever was going on at that place, _every **single**_ person they were experimenting on died, some of them slowly, some of them quickly… you were the only exception."

"Why me?" You wanted to sound stronger, but the words escaped as a half-whisper.

"We've been trying to figure that out, but without knowing exactly what they did, we can't get any closer to figuring it out than we are now. Judging by the number of empty cells they had left and the state of some of those corpses, you might have gotten a more advanced version of whatever treatment they were using. You might have exactly the right genetic structure to handle whatever they dealt out. Or maybe you're just tough, lucky, or dumb - whatever makes you push through the things they did to you. Whatever the case is, you lived, and that's what we had to go on. Starting to get why I've been so hesitant to trust you?"

"Holy… holy…" You trailed off, leaning against the door frame with one hand on your head. Fury looked at you intensely, waving his hands around to emphasize the tools he was holding.

"We've done every test we can. We figured out a little of what changed in you, but not enough to know what they did, or why. I can't keep you locked up here forever, and unlike Hydra, I'm not gonna put a bullet in your head because you aren't useful anymore."

"Okay… so let's go back to where this all started," you whispered, blinking as your mind whirled with the effort of taking all this new information in and reconciling it with how everyone around you had been acting. "If this isn't a medical procedure, what the hell did you bring to me today?"

"I thought we already went over this," Fury said, his voice lightening for just a moment, "I brought you _trust_."

"Fury, I swear to whatever god there is, I will-"

"It's a GPS chip. Designed to be attached to human bone, so it's not gonna be any less painful than a spinal tap, I can guarantee you that," Fury said loudly, interrupting you before you could quite start to cuss him out.

"A GPS chip?" The words echoed around in your head a few moments before you really understood what he was saying. "Does that… does that mean you're going to set me free? That you just want a way to track me and-"

"Let's… not get ahead of ourselves," Fury said calmly, cutting your hopeful thoughts off before they'd even had a chance to blossom. "Currently all I'm looking at is moving you to a facility with more than one entrance. Let's start there."

"So you aren't throwing me into some gulag at the bottom of the world to be forgotten?" You asked, half-chuckling.

"Don't tempt me. It's never too late to change a good plan."

"I just…"

You trailed off, not sure where to go. You wanted to say it sounded too good to be true. You'd given up on hope too many times to let it bloom now, and part of you thought Fury was playing a cruel trick on you. But his reasoning was sort of sound, if you were willing to trust the base of evidence he presented. That was a big leap to make… but was it too far for you?

"What do you need me to do?"

Your words were quiet, but Fury seemed to hear them perfectly. He nodded, gesturing in a "come-hither" motion with the hand holding the needle.

"Not much, not yet. We won't be finalizing the move for a couple more days until we can verify this chip is working and get everything in place at the new facility. Right now, all I need you to do is grit your teeth and try not to scream too loudly."

You tried. You tried very hard. Fury still laughed at you as the tool in his right hand clamped down around your arm, driving a tracking chip to the bone. And when you failed to hide your cries, you tried to hide the genuine smile that rose to your face as you realized it was the most sympathetic laugh you'd ever heard.


	16. Shock and... Aww...

"Got anything else you want us to pack up?"

"What would I have?" you asked Clint, genuinely confused. "Fury won't even let me have a stress toy. ***I asked***."

"Probably just didn't want you imagining you were choking the life out of him," Clint said with a shrug, so casually he sounded like he'd done it a dozen times. "But seriously, all those times we hung out, and you're telling me you didn't even smuggle _one_ keg of beer back to that room of yours?"

"How in the _**hell**_ would I smuggle a keg of beer back there, much _less_ actually hide it?"

"You really need to work on your imagination," Clint taunted, shaking his head in mock disappointment.

"And you need to work on your discipline. Guess you're both behind on that front," Natasha said, walking past the both of you with yet another box full of equipment. She'd taken to emptying out the training room, now that most of the rest of the house had been packed up, including your bed.

"We probably should get back to helping her," you said, nodding toward the door and starting to move again. You'd been holding a box of pieces of the torn down training equipment when Clint started interrogating you on your imaginary alcohol stash. Fury still didn't trust you enough to let you load it onto whatever truck or van they were packing things into, but you were at least - finally - allowed to go to the front door to the apartment/cell without direct supervision. Probably had to do with the GPS chip in your arm.

"Well, all that's left is my room. Guess I can't really slack on that front," Clint said at last, sighing as he turned away from you and started toward the back room. As you dropped off the box of training gear he passed you by, a huge tote filled with binders. Knowing him, they were probably filled with something completely irrelevant to his work as a… spy? Whatever the hell these "Agents" actually did.

There was a certain tension in the air, but it was a shared one. This was the first time you'd been around Clint and Natasha at the same time in a long while, and for once, you didn't think they were both deliberately avoiding or watching you. The move may have been making them nervous, but you felt like just slightly less of an outsider to them. Even for Natasha. Her taunts aside, she had actually relaxed a bit since your last real conversation. She was hardly friendly, but at least she wasn't actively trying to intimidate you.

You worked for a bit longer in silence, passing Clint and Natasha several times, always with a polite nod or a curt smile. Eventually, however, the boxes started to dwindle. The last of the training equipment was gone, but Natasha and Clint were still venturing into their private rooms. The fact that the doors automatically locked behind them was definitely slowing them down, but you were still surprised at the sheer number of boxes they were carrying out. How big were their rooms? They'd never let you see their private quarters. You wished they were using transparent totes to carry things around; you would have loved to know what the _hell_ they needed so many boxes for. A part of you wondered if you were watching the two SHIELD Agents carry out an arsenal that would make a large militia jealous.

When you sat the last box by the door, Clint seemed to take over the rest of the journey. Instead of going into his private room he started hauling off the boxes you'd delivered, while Natasha continued to work on her own things. Neither of them had ever hauled out any pieces of furniture, but you doubted that they would have gone this long without a bed, desk, chair, or something else. You just weren't sure if they hadn't hauled those things out yet, or if they had done it before you woke up.

"By all means, make yourself at home. I think we can handle this," Natasha said, quirking an eyebrow at you as she continued to carry boxes out to the front door.

"I mean, I've already moved everything out of this place except what's in your room. Finally willing to let someone in?"

She clearly noticed the play on words and rolled her eyes at you. "Never mind, I'll take care of it myself. Last time you tried to get me to let you in, you ended up with a dislocated arm, we wouldn't want that to happen again."

"Hey, last time you were rooting for the bodily injury, I think we're making real progress!" you shouted at her back, trying not to laugh too hard as she disappeared out the front door again, box in tow. Her tone had been… almost jovial, you thought. At the very least it sounded much, much happier compared to how she'd been lately. Hell, as she strode back in and threw you a questioning glance on her way to her room, you would've almost thought you saw something in her eyes. Was she friendly? Hell no. But… she was almost acting like she could tolerate you.

Almost.

The sound of the door opening barely caught your attention, as often as you'd been hearing it that day. What came next, however, had your entire body tensing at once, even as you heard the voice of Clint coming through the doorway.

"HYDRA! Duck and cover, get down, fucking _**cover your ears!**_"

As heightened as your senses seemed to be, your mind was still operating on a pretty relaxed scale. Before you fully processed the words a small, silvery canister ricocheted off the kitchen walls and landed just a few feet away. A warmth passed over your body starting at your neck, spreading to your head first, then your heart, lungs, and your chest. Just as it started to reach your limbs, just as your body started to recoil in uncertain terror, that canister exploded.

Like a miniature sun, light washed over your eyes, searing and blinding your retinas in an instant. A moment behind it came a wave of sound so intense your ears felt like someone was digging their fingers deep into your ear canals, destroying your hearing and concentration with an agonizing wave of pain and suffering.

You stumbled against what you could only assume were the walls, your senses dulled to the barest tingle as you bumped into more than one obstacle on your way to the back of the facility. You crashed into at least three separate walls before literally falling over something you couldn't recognize, the flash having blinded you so thoroughly all you could make out around you was gray.

Your hearing was the first thing to come back, at least in part. Beyond the ringing and throbbing in your ears, the frustratingly overwhelming noises that lingered long after they had passed, you could hear the sound of dozens of miniature explosions filling the air. It wasn't until your mind cleared out as well as your ears that you realized you were hearing gunfire, and a _lot_ of it.

Explosions, impacts, ricochets, some of which were far too close for you to ever feel comfortable sitting still again… yet all you could do was rock back and forth in place, your senses not even giving you enough information for you to be sure where you were. Your mind overwhelmed you with possibilities. That Clint and Natasha were dead. That they were alive, but they had abandoned you in the chaos, saving themselves and protecting SHIELD over you.

The terrifying thoughts continued as the reverberations of explosions and discharges passed over you, each wave of force making you shudder and shiver beneath your unknown cover. The thing that finally shook you free, what finally made you snap out of your terrified reverie, was a hand. A single palm, gripping you by the shoulder… and the words that quickly followed, so closely pressed to your ear that you recoiled from it.

"We're under attack. We have to move, now!"

The words were harsh, unfeeling. Your conscious mind was grateful for a familiar voice - though you were too far gone to process why it was familiar - but your instincts screamed against the intrusion, and you delved further into the safety of the cold steel against your left shoulder, burying your face into metal that bent and rippled with the pressure you placed against it. More words came but you were focused away, too far gone to understand them. You were nearly separated entirely from the reality around you, focused too much on your mental escapism, when a new wave of sound passed over you.

It was subtle, at first. It would have probably been too quiet and too innocent for you to notice over the insistent, prying sounds of combat outside, but even when you tried to ignore the noise it never faded away entirely. The sound stayed constant, fading to the background of each eruption of noise, but rising to the front when you had a moment of quiet. It was consistent, subtle, almost… musical.

Спи, младенец мой прекрасный,  
Баюшки-баю.  
Тихо смотрит месяц ясный  
В колыбель твою.  
Стану сказывать я сказки,  
Песенку спою;  
Ты ж дремли, закрывши глазки,  
Баюшки-баю.

The sounds around you never properly died out enough for you to appreciate what was being whispered to you. Explosions still echoed, harsh calls still filled the air… but the strange melody, the words you could never quite understand filled your mind. They echoed in your memory, stirring things you hadn't contemplated since your first moment awake. For a while, they consumed you, but as the melody faded you realized where they were coming from. Where you had heard them before, and what they had meant then. When at last you found the mental strength to pull your eyes open, when you finally stopped the shaking in your limbs, you were met with a strikingly colorful pair of green irises and a brilliant set of red locks surrounding them. Your breath came in gasps, but your panic had been subdued enough for you to recognize who you were staring at.

Natasha met your gaze long enough to realize that you were paying attention to her now, that your gaze was focused and alert. Then she pulled herself away slightly as she lifted one of her pistols over the desk you'd been cowering under, firing several rounds off without hesitation. When her eyes returned to yours they were harsher, less understanding, but just as sympathetic.

"We need to move, now. Follow me. I'll protect you."

Her words were kind, her tone was harsh… and her eyes read something else entirely. You had no time to think on what it could be, though. All you remembered was nodding frantically as Natasha grabbed your arm and pulled you free of your makeshift shelter, dragging you into the warzone beyond.


	17. Extraction Point: Secure

Her grip was like iron, and you were reminded for a moment how she had grabbed you the first time you'd met, effortlessly throwing you to the ground. Instead now she held you to her, one arm wrapped around your wrist and the other pointing her gun ahead as she blazed her way through the complex while unleashing rounds at anything that moved. She even reloaded effortlessly, her free hand barely leaving your wrist to properly orient a magazine before it found its way again, dragging you alongside her.

Every time someone appeared her reflexes saved you; only once, when you were passing through the kitchen, did she actually pull you behind cover. Ineffective as the cover was, three HYDRA agents had passed through the open doorway at nearly the same time, forcing Natasha to forcibly throw you toward the wall behind the refrigerator while pumping rounds into the entrance.

The appliance wasn't much comfort; you huddled to the ground as a spattering of assault rounds penetrated right through its edges, with metal and plastic shards added to the shrapnel, some bouncing off the nearby counters and bouncing back onto you. Natasha found her own cover behind the kitchen island, taking down two of the HYDRA agents with accurate, precise shots at the joints where their body armor must have been the weakest. The remaining soldier peppered the island with rapid fire, multiple rounds sending wood and marble flying around Natasha's head. By the time that happened she was already on the move, though, sliding effortlessly into a reload as she circled around. She was at the other end of the island while the soldier was still firing at the front, and in one movement she slid out of cover, into a firing stance, and put three rounds into the HYDRA soldier. He crumpled to the ground with his finger on the trigger, a few rounds uselessly peppering the ceiling before his shoulder hit the tile and forced his hand away.

"Come on," Natasha breathed, somehow already on her feet, gesturing for you to follow her. She waited until you actually started to scramble to your feet, not trusting your panicked mind until she had her palm wrapped around your arm again. Your eyes fell to the other firearm at her side, the unused pistol that she had yet to touch, too busy babysitting you and making sure you were following her. For a moment you remained silent, eyes locked not on Natasha but on the doorway that you were passing through… it was the door you'd been told never to cross. The place you'd always believed was your escape, if you could only find a way to unlock it and pass through.

Instead of sunlight, instead of an escape, Natasha pulled you through that door and into a network of tunnels, cold metal and an unyielding steel meeting your gaze. The area you'd been living in was designed and dedicated to looking like an apartment, apparently… but beyond that doorway, there were only shiny metal corridors as far as the eye could see, numerous doorways and branching paths making you wonder where you were, how vast the facility truly might be, and how many resources were dedicated to keeping you there.

None of those questions mattered anymore, it seemed. The only thing you really understood was why Clint and Natasha were insisting on carrying packages out of the facility themselves despite their alleged trust of you. Natasha led you through the tunnels effortlessly, so familiar with their layout she managed them effortlessly, even amid constant assaults from HYDRA forces. You were so overwhelmed by the facility's size that it wasn't until the third time she awkwardly shoved you into a doorway to return fire on a set of approaching soldiers that you found your voice.

"I'll follow you," you said, loudly enough that you hoped it carried over the repeated shots echoing around you. "You can let go of me. Please, I… I know you don't trust me, but you need both hands! I'll hold myself together. For your sake _and_ mine. If I fall behind just fucking leave me!"

Natasha didn't turn her head back, but you saw her eyes flicker to you between rounds. She seemed to be weighing something in her head. After a long moment, she nodded slightly, then turned her eyes back to the fight at hand. A second later her hand fell away from your wrist entirely, pulling a free clip from her belt and readying it. The second her gun ran out of ammo she reloaded, catching one of the HYDRA soldiers who had been counting rounds off-guard. She put three rounds into his helmet before he had fully raised his rifle, and the enemy soldier fell to the ground in a heap while she started down the hallway. 

She did turn her head - only slightly - back toward you in the alcove, but by the time she locked her gaze with yours, you were following after just a moment behind.

The two of you continued on that way, your adrenaline ever present and never relenting. Occasionally, when the steel corridors were your only company and the waves of HYDRA were stifled, she checked on you over her shoulder. You offered your hands as some kind of gesture of goodwill, promising you weren't about to try to snatch the firearm from her side and take command of the escape, but nothing ever softened her gaze. She was as alert as ever, and never hesitated to step over a corpse or end the life of anyone in her path. It was a frightening trait.

So why did it not bother you in the slightest?

Perhaps it was as simple as you relying on her for safety at that moment, and that you couldn't afford to be afraid of her. Maybe it was the fact that clearly, if she'd wanted you dead at any point, very little could have stopped her, so why be afraid now? Honestly, though… you had to admit, as frightening as she was, she was even more impressive.

The stoic nature that had always frustrated you before was like a beacon of confidence and skill now. No matter how many enemy agents she was going up against she never hesitated, never showed fear, never froze up. You wished you were half as brave, even though you knew she had to have hundreds of hours in the field, if not thousands, to practice. Still, you felt almost ashamed of yourself every time the sound of gunfire made you flinch or lose your footing, every time a bullet ricocheted off the wall nearby and you almost shut down.

Adrenaline and fear and corpses distorted your sense of time. Seconds dragged on for hours, but the corridors seemed to be flying by. How many of the doorways were storage, how many of them were wings of this complex you'd never seen before? How long had you been running? Maybe you'd been shot, maybe you were bleeding out on the floor, and this endless series of corridors was just your mind entertaining you for eternity in a mindless, repetitive blood frenzy. 

The series was only brought to an eventual halt when a trio of soldiers came around the corner and lined their rifles on you. It wasn't significantly different from what had been happening since you left the apartment, but what shook things up was the arrow that landed in the middle soldier's helmet. The man didn't even cry out, dead on impact with the head of the arrow lodged in his skull. He fell forward only a few inches before the arrow started to beep, and then there was a bloody spray in the hallway ahead of you. If Natasha hadn't already reflexively thrown the both of you behind cover, well… you shuddered at the thought of such a mess.

That didn't spare your ears, of course. The explosion was overpoweringly loud, even muffled by human flesh, and you felt a bit like a bomb had gone off in your own skull. Even Natasha winced, but recovered quickly and stepped free. Stepping over gore and corpses, Clint came around the corner the men had just crossed, nodding with a soft smile.

"Hey, there aren't many left, hurry up!"

"Where the hell did you run off to, Barton?" Natasha said, sounding more playful than annoyed.

"Hey, somebody had to split them up. I headed for the entrance, blew up a few side halls and started a few fires to split the rest of them up. What, you think they were running at you a handful at a time for fun? Hell, I think I did most of the work," Clint said with confidence as the three of you started down the hall together.

"Like you'd ever admit otherwise."

The banter mostly stopped as the three of you proceeded, but Clint's words seemed to be right accurate - there were almost no soldiers left in your way. The last sprint to the exit was done with minimal bloodshed. Then the floor began to tilt upward slightly, your protectors pushing forward while making sure you were still with them. The door had been thrown open, likely damaged during the beginning of the assault. The three of you ran through the open doorway, and for the first time in forever, literally for the first time as long as you could remember…

"Oh… oh my god…"

You stumbled the second you were beyond the doorway and into the open. Your eyes traveled in a whirling blur as you turned your gaze on everything you could see. The base, such as it was, had been built underground, at least under the surface. The only thing you could see behind you was a steel door and thick wall rising out of a mound of dirt. Around you were countless trees, stretching as far as the eye could see, their thick trunks stretching to the sky. Bushes and untamed wilds littered the ground, but through all of that greenery were just enough gaps for you to finally _feel_ it.

"Hey, we have to keep moving," Clint said, coming up to you and putting a hand on your shoulder. You tried to meet his gaze, but now the tears were starting, and as hard as you tried, you couldn't stop shaking.

"It's shock," Natasha said coolly. "We may have to carry-"

"Please, just let me stay here for a minute. Just… just one more minute," you pleaded.

"That's the shock talking," Natasha said quietly. She didn't seem angry, or even annoyed. If anything it was the nicest she'd talked to you in some time - though you had to listen deeply to hear it. "You know we need to move. You're not safe here."

"I… I know that, I want to get as far away from here as I can," you half-whispered, fighting back the sobs in your chest.

"Well, you're doin' a pretty piss poor job of it right now. No guarantee we took out everyone in that base, so why don't we get moving, yeah?"

"I'm sorry, it's… I just…"

You pointed up, and started laughing as the tears flew freely. Both of them glanced up, and when they saw nothing, turned back to you.

"This is the first time I… I mean, since… I just couldn't remember what the sun felt like. It's… it's _so_ much warmer than I thought it would be."

Clint and Natasha exchanged a look, but you didn't get to see it. Your eyes were cast to the forest floor as you shivered and laughed a moment longer. Then Natasha and Clint were beside you, one of your arms in each of their grips as they started to carry you. In the distance, the sound of an approaching helicopter came through the trunks and the canopy.

It was metal and unnatural, like your cage. But it sounded like freedom.


	18. Your New Home. Your First Home.

The last few days had been a blur, a traumatizing blur of mentally trying to overcome and compile everything you'd seen and heard during your flight from that place. Blood, bone, tissue, screaming, and a frantic desire for survival waged war memories as your subconscious tried to decipher the most important lessons to learn from your encounter. More than once you awoke in a cold sweat, some dream of the HYDRA agents overpowering Natasha, overpowering Clint, of you being alone without either SHIELD agent as the enemy descended upon you… or, more rarely, with one of the SHIELD agents bearing down upon you, their weapon drawn, ready to finally rid themselves of your burden…

That had been the worst. Clint and Natasha had both seen you wake like that mid-transport, as the three of you made your way across the countryside. Neither of them said anything, but surprisingly, both of them looked pretty empathetic. You couldn't think of what to say. Surely after all they'd probably done and seen, they had plenty of nightmares of their own. Thinking about that made you feel… _slightly_ better.

By now you were past the initial trauma. Your dreams were still vivid and shocking, but they didn't have the same impact. They were no worse than your daily thoughts, which were spent pouring over every memory, thinking on what could have happened if you did one thing wrong, or if your helpers did one thing wrong… or if your enemies had done one thing right.

Now when you could forget the stress and worry of your fight for survival, you at least had something to be grateful for. You'd escaped that prison, that awful place, and your life inside an underground bunker. You had new memories, not only of Clint and Natasha trying to fight to save you, not only risking their own lives for your sake… but memories of the sun. 

Memories of green things, plants and bushes and leaves that crumpled under your feet as you sprinted to a distant extraction zone. Bark and bristles and thorns that lashed out at you during your mad dash. Of course, even the most sanguine of thoughts and memories couldn't erase your nightmares, but they could console you in your waking moments during the darkest parts of the night. They could keep you sane when your deepest fears came to the surface, and give you the strength to make it to the dawn.

And the dawn… what a miraculous sight it was. How fantastic, how miraculous. Only a few days ago you'd never thought you'd see the sunlight again, and now things had changed. You had a new location provided by SHIELD for you, a place you could properly call a home. It was pretty barren, overall; a kitchen with a microwave, a refrigerator, and a lot of empty cupboards and counter space. A living room with a television with basic cable. A bedroom with a single bed on a metal frame, a spare room, and the sun room.

Oh, the sun room. The thought alone was still like ecstasy in your mind. You weren't sure if the room had always been like this, or if one of the others requested a remodel after you confessed your fears to them so many times. It was at the corner of the apartment - the corner of the building, actually - and one full wall, as well as half of the other wall, were floor-to-ceiling with some kind of tinted glass, probably a lot stronger of a tint than you could tell without being outside. You doubted Fury wanted anyone besides SHIELD spying in on you. The glass was thick, probably bulletproof, although you didn't bother testing it. The building you were in was the tallest one around to discourage people peering in, and it was a good two hundred feet to the ground or better by a quick glance. Even with whatever enhancements Fury said you had, there was no way you were surviving that fall.

Fury hadn't gained a terrible amount of faith in you, despite your best efforts. Security measures at the apartment were still extreme. You had a space on the top floor of an apartment building to yourself now, instead of a single room in what could be described generously as a "supervised containment" facility, but there were plenty of measures to keep you there. The door to the hallway was locked with a code, and you were guessing that if you found your way outside of it anyway, you'd just be in a deeper layer of a proper SHIELD facility outside. 

Natasha and Clint were probably staying nearby, either in a room outside or a floor down, because they checked in on you about three or four times a day, which was even more reason you were sure this wasn't a full apartment building, but rather a highly secured building with living quarters at the top. There were also cameras in the kitchen, living room, the spare room, and you were guessing in the bedroom, but you couldn't see any in there after a quick search. You just _hoped_ there were none in the bathroom. Oh, and there were at least three in the sun room. More security to stop thoughts of escape, probably.

Honestly, though, thoughts of escape were further than they ever had been before. Fury wasn't entirely being sarcastic when he talked about what was in that syringe. The idea that they would bother to install a GPS chip and move you out of a base that had thwarted your escapes multiple times, only to then later throw you right back in another hole or put a bullet in your head… well, Fury had at least succeeded in making it harder for you to think the worst of him. 

The realization that they had begun moving prep just before a HYDRA strike force came after you wasn't lost on you of course. The timing was too convenient. But Fury offered to stop tests on you, whether he intended to follow through or not. If he wanted you dead, all Natasha had to do was put a bullet in you herself, or leave you alone with HYDRA coming strong. You still didn't know what they wanted, why they were so interested in you beyond understanding HYDRA tech… but they wanted you alive, and after what you'd just gone through, that was enough for now.

Laying on your bed the day after you'd been moved in, trying to find a way to pass the time without letting memories run on repeat in your head, the sound of your door opening came. Your heart skipped a beat, your mind ran itself into a frenzy in an instant, but your conscious mind tried to shut those things down. A voice came a moment later.

"Hey, it's just Clint, don't freak out at me. Still kind of sore."

You winced at the memory. The first time Clint had come to visit you after you took up residence here you'd been in the middle of putting away a basic food kit Fury had provided you with; when the door opened unannounced and Clint hurried in, you immediately speed-balled a can of soup at him. Caught him on the shoulder, only because he moved his head out of the way. He had insisted that it was his own fault for coming in unannounced, but he still hadn't started knocking before he entered.

"Hey, looks like you've finally finished unpacking." 

You rolled your eyes at Clint as he stepped into your room without ceremony. He was holding his hands behind his back, very obviously hiding something in the way that he only would if he wanted you to know what he was holding, but wanted you to have time to guess.

"Oh yeah, I've been real busy the past few days. I couldn't decide whether to put the nothing all in one corner, or if I should spread it out to make the room look a little fuller."

"Hey that reminds me, catch these!" You fumbled as Barton answered your sarcasm with gifts, tossing a set of magazines at you. You only managed to catch a few of them, the rest falling to the floor in a heap. You climbed off of the bed to gather them up. Glancing over them, you didn't recognize store names, but you saw food, clothes, furniture, and even a few arts and crafts vendors. 

"Fury says you get five hundred a month. No electronics yet but Fury said this place will be yours someday, so you should be allowed to get your interior decorator on. Pick any food or projects you want, but if you spend all your money on booze, Fury says you starve until next month." 

"Fury put booze in here?" you asked disbelievingly, glancing through the food pages. 

"No, he actually said not to waste your money on furniture and fashion, but if you ask for booze, I deliver," Clint said with a wink. "Don't try it with Nat though. Also, I know the whole memory thing means you don't have a lot of context for cost, but trust me, good food isn't cheap in this area, especially since I'm guessing you don't remember how to cook." You shook your head in answer to the implied question, and Clint just nodded. 

"Yeah, gonna be a lot of frozen dinners in your future. Hey, at least everything in this fridge is yours now! Eat cheap and you can save up and start customizing the place too."

"So, wait, did I hear that right? Did Fury really say that this place would be mine one day?"

"Fury already told you, didn't he?" Clint asked, raising an eyebrow. "The whole reason we were gonna move to this place was to take it easier on you. You're still under watch, and with those keen eyes of yours, you probably already spotted a couple of the cameras in the other rooms. Nothing in the bathroom, can't recommend stripping down anywhere else. Unless you're trying to give Natasha or I one hell of a show." 

You shuddered at the thought of cameras watching your every move. It wasn't strictly more invasive than having agents watching and listening to you at every hour of the day, but at least you could tell where they were, and they weren't recording- oh god, had they been recording you? Surely they had some kind of tech for that. You never saw any bodycams, but...

"I'm just gonna try not to think about that," you said, shuddering. 

"Yeah, I wouldn't think too much about it either," Clint said, chuckling. "Natasha already uploaded all my files to the public, but you've still got a chance not to end up with a tape of yourself pulling a "Risky Business" in the living room in the nude." 

"Now that is a very specific example, Clint. Did I miss something in your file I should know about?"

Natasha rolled into the room with a grin on her face the likes of which you'd rarely seen. When her eyes passed over you she fell back into that neutral expression… but compared to the disdain she'd had for you not so long ago, it felt like a smile from her. She had something in her hands, but unlike Clint she made no attempt to hide it.

"No, no, no, no, no, you don't need to go looking through anything," Clint said, laughing in a way that you couldn't tell if he was actually nervous or just joking.

"Then maybe you'll keep the conversation professional," Natasha said, though she allowed herself a half-smile all the same.

"I was just being perfectly clear on where someone could strip in here without showing off the goods. I thought that information was good for everyone to know, but you seem to disagree. If you'd prefer Nat, I could pin up a schedule on who is watching the cameras and when… maybe you'd like a show after all?"

"For someone who doesn't want me to search their phone, you're giving me a lot of reasons to tell Fury that your cell might have been compromised," Natasha said dryly, raising an eyebrow at her fellow agent.

"Hey, I'm just being honest. And you," Clint said, turning and pointing at you as he strode back toward the door, "remember that! If you want honesty come to Clint. If you want threats, go to Fury, and if you want a buzzkill, go to _Agent Romanov_."

Natasha shot a look at Clint as he sarcastically emphasized her full title. If she were anyone else you'd have been expecting her to strike out at him, the way she was glaring. Instead Clint escaped unscathed, leaving you alone with Natasha. Normally you would've been unsure what to say, but after being left alone with your thoughts for so long, there was one thing you had in mind that you were glad to have her alone for.

"Hey, I just wanted to say… thank you," you said, trying to sound as confident as you could. "You've saved my life twice now. Well, twice that I know of, anyway, but I'm counting you breaking me out. Pretty sure the agents with you might have shot me if you hadn't been strong enough to stop me when I was blind and afraid. Either way there's _no_ question you saved my ass back there."

"Just doing my job. We're not just here to secure and contain you. We're supposed to protect you too."

"Be that as it may, I was a fucking wreck back there, and I know it. Those flashbangs, the gunfire, the adrenaline flooding through me… I just panicked. I ran to the sturdiest corner I could find and hid there," you said, quietly enough to be reminiscent but loudly enough for Natasha to hear your regret. "I'm… I'm really sorry. You had to stay long enough to save me, you had to risk your life for mine, and I just froze. But you stayed with me. I know it was your mission, but… thank you."

"Don't worry about it," Natasha said seriously. "We've already told you. SHIELD aren't the bad guys. Protecting civilians is part of the job."

"I'd say you should be better at accepting thanks, but… well, 'special agent' probably means you guys don't make the headlines often."

"You'd be surprised," Natasha said with a soft smile, so quick you almost didn't notice. Then she approached you on the bed and offered what she had been holding onto - a set of notepads and some pens. "Here. Take these. Clint forgot them when he grabbed the shopping catalogues. When you decide you want something, just write up a list and put it somewhere near the front door. We'll make shopping trips on our handoff days, so it could be a little while before we pick it up, but this way you can add as much as you want. If you're asleep when we drop them off, we'll leave a note with whatever you've got left in your allowance."

"Allowance," you snorted, "sadly, I appreciate being treated like a child. Slight upgrade from prisoner."

"_Big_ upgrade," she corrected, turning and striding out the door.

You thought about saying something, but the moment was too nice. Clint and Natasha were friendlier to you than ever - whatever hostility had arisen between the three of you back at the base, they were gone. Natasha wasn't even being quite as cold and emotionless. You still weren't sure what had changed, but you resolved not to spend so much time thinking about it. You doubted you'd ever figure out exactly what any of them were thinking, anyway.

Besides… for the first time you could remember, your future was bright. It was important. And somehow, it was enough to take the weight of an unknowable past off your shoulders. At least for a little while.


End file.
